


In the Abyss' depth

by CodenameAntarctica



Series: Beyond the shallow ground [3]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 60,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameAntarctica/pseuds/CodenameAntarctica
Summary: To get rid of the threat Chernobog still poses for their fortunes and lives, three rivals of the underworld must work together. But secrets are being kept and decisions made selflishly, while the danger is getting ready to rain down on them.Asami, Mikhail and Fei Long find out who is behind Chernobog and search for a way to deal with him, while their private lives and loves and longings get into the way.Each chapter written from a different point-of-view: Asami, Fei Long, Mikhail, Sakazaki, Aaron, Sudou and Akihito.(Contains spoilers for Finder's chapter 88 and starts about 4 weeks after that.)(This story will have a solution to some of the open-ends the Manga serie's has at this point and therefore there will be character-death, just not any of the majors!)
Relationships: Asami Ryuichi/Takaba Akihito, Mikhail Arbatov/Liu Fei Long
Series: Beyond the shallow ground [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033884
Comments: 76
Kudos: 114





	1. Asami

**Author's Note:**

> RELATED WORKS:  
> "In the Abyss' depth" is part of a trilogy. It starts with “Six minutes”, followed by “Shards and Debris” and continues with this.  
> Both “Six minutes” and “Shards and Debris” are MxF centered. The first is a recounting of most of Finder’s chapter 88, the second starts at the morning after and covers a timespan of about 5 days. "In the Abyss' depth" starts about 4 weeks after the end of “Shards and Debris”.  
> To follow the plot of this work it might not be necessary to know the previous two stories (, especially not the first), but in terms of character development I think at least “Shards and Debris” must be read. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER:  
> All rights to the Finder universe and characters lie with their creator, Yamane Ayano.

Vacating the elevator at the 88th floor of the IFC – that marvelous glass tower which lodged the headquarter of Baishe and Fei Long’s personal apartment – they followed the young lady in red cheongsam, who had received them in a private area of the underground car park.

After bowing deeply to Asami, when he stepped out of the black Mercedes, she had complemented him, Suoh and Kirishima all the way, always keeping that hard to perfectly balance equilibrium between cordiality and factuality.

Reaching the conference room, however, she thanked them once again for their visit – as if it was one of leisure – then excused herself and left.

Asami stepped into the room, followed by his men. Only half-heartedly he had an eye for the beautiful wooden wainscot and floor, for the coffered ceiling, the ivory paper-tapestry, the golden panel lighting and ancient Chinese furniture. The conference room was kept in a soothing darkness, perfect for a place where you could bargain a billion-dollar-deal with the man controlling most of the Asian underworld, and the only person in there yet, half sitting on one of those lacquered black drawer-cabinets, was as misplaced in this room as an advertisement for a Lamborghini would have been in a Shinto-Temple.

Mikhail Arbatov wore a cyan-colored silk shirt on which several buttons from his collar downwards were undone and the sleeves upturned all the way beyond his elbows, with dark blue-jeans and brown Grenson Fred boots. With his golden locks and sun kissed skin he looked completely out of place there – something that he usually would most likely have reveled in, sporting an annoying smile and beaming at everyone. Now however he was different. He had been staring towards the door with overshadowed eyes even before the three Japanese men in dark suits had entered and only nodded towards them when they did.

It had been about two months since Asami had last seen the Russian – jumping out of a Mini car which had just forced its way into a Macau warehouse owned by the very same man. Wielding his gun, he had run off in pursuit of the man Asami had thought he had shot dead nearly a year before on that Casino ship, and that had been the last glimpse the Japanese had had of the other.

Most of the void from those moments on until he woke up in a Hong Kong hospital three weeks later Kirishima had filled, both from intel gathered himself and provided by both Arbatov and Fei Long – however _that_ information Asami would always take with a grain of salt. Though he doubted that the Chinese would harm him _now_ – in business or in private – he wasn’t sure if he would disclose all his knowledge. And in regard of the Russian, he really had no way of telling how much he should actually trust _his_ intelligence. Mikhail Arbatov had had his fair share at colluding to the catastrophic clusterfuck which the whole situation with Sudou and Chernobog had turned into, and Asami had no idea where his intentions were aiming at now.

His mere presence made a mean streak in within Asami’s soul cry for him to outlash in malice, and if what halted him was not that he had been told that Mikhail would be here and that he needed to be, then it was the man’s serious gaze and unusual quiet.

“Where is he?”, Asami asked sitting down in one of the black Eames Executive chairs at the long end of the table, while Kirishima filled glasses with water and mugs with coffee provided by elegant steel thermos.

“Should be here any second now”, Mikhail answered, hardly moving once again. And sure, a moment later steps could be heard down the floor. Pausing in the doorframe, Fei Long regarded the men already present.

“Good afternoon.”

He wore a white Cheongsam embroidered with silver threads and black, flying swans, and had his hair tugged to the back of his head with a thin ribbon.

Not getting up, Asami, just like anybody else, answered the greeting, then watched as Fei Long settled down in the chair on the other side of Suoh. Yoh, clothed in a black suit without tie, locked the door and sat down next to… yes, what was Fei Long to him now?

Asami found himself eyeing the two Chinese intently. When Fei Long had abducted Akihito to Hong Kong, Yoh’s spying on the dragon of Baishe had become apparent and Asami had offered to protect the man who had indeed been working for him for nearly seven years. Yoh however had declined, what surely could have been his death sentence, as Fei Long was no one to cross and no one you could run from.

But Kirishima had told him that Yoh had been with Fei Long when he had been abducted by Chernobog, and here he now sat next to his former – and maybe once again – master. His hair cut shorter, his cheeks hollow as ever, his gaze unshaking when he looked up from the silver tablet pc, he had brought along, for one second to greet Asami with a nod. And Fei Long looked nowhere near of ripping his head off.

With a few touches to the pc one of the wall’s decorations split, both parts moving aside with a quiet whisper, revealing the large flatscreen tv behind. Another touch and the lights of the room dimmed even more and the tv’s display lit up darkly. Yoh pushed the pc across the smooth lacquered table towards Mikhail Arbatov, who finally got out of his crouch.

“Won’t you sit?”, Fei Long asked, his voice even more quiet than usual – nearly solemnly Asami thought.

“Thanks. There’s stuff I’m better at when standing”, the Russian retorted and for a fraction of a second a smile showed on his face that was clear enough to be seen even in the semi-darkness. But it vanished quickly enough.

With another fingertip hitting the tablet pc all attention in the room was drawn towards the large tv. Now it showed the picture of a man in his early fifties judging by the wrinkles on his forehead and around his nose, and by his heavy eye bags. His hair however was still somewhere between a lively reddish-blonde and the first steaks of grey, and his eyes, though not turned towards the camera, looked sparkly blue and energetic. In the picture the man seemed to be illuminated by the spotlights of some stage at a press-conference or otherwise official gig, with a glass of water and a microphone in front of him and some blurred company trademarks showing in the background, which was out of the camera’s focus. He wore a white shirt without a tie and some buttons undone, beneath a dark grey jacket, sporting a smile which looked quite genuine. For the information and composition of the picture he could be very much anybody, a well-kept car salesman or the CEO of a billion-dollar-company, but Asami didn’t need to try and place the person by mere looks.

He knew the man.

“Viktor Elisov”, Mikhail spoke the name out aloud when it had just formed on Asami’s tongue.

“54, born in St. Petersburg when it was still called Leningrad, father of five children, entrepreneur, businessman, billionaire and politician. Chernobog is his private army – not that anybody is supposed to know. They provide the chaos and strife necessary to keep some of his businesses flourishing, and the equipment and goods to undertake and fulfill others.”

“And you know that _how_?”, Asami interrupted leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest and forcing as much doubt into his voice as he could muster. It gained him a reproachful look from Fei Long and an annoyed one from Mikhail, which then turned to a smile when the Russian pushed himself up onto the drawer cabinet once again.

“By following the money. It wasn’t easy in this case, however. You’re welcome, by the way! That man is one of the great shadow figures of Russia. One of the ‘eminences grises’ keeping the whole system working and growing and prospering. The money that ends up in his piggy bank wanders through many other hands, making them richer and richer as well. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any attempts at getting rid of him. Keeping to himself and still holding onto many of the chains which keep the carriage going, is an eyesore for many higher ups. Chernobog has been quite helpful to him at that as well, with killing politician’s and their families in their sleep, abducting children, gathering extortion material, you name it. It’s always in the long run the same person who benefits, but that long run is a labyrinth around the world. I had to search for some very old family contacts and ask many favors to even find the slightest trace of his connection to all of this.”

Picking with one finger at the tablet, the smile on Mikhail’s face started to gleam self-righteously. “I think this is more than you figured out in months of running from that scum.”

Asami shot him a gaze that could kill across the table, but the Russian didn’t even look up to witness it.

Now pictures of Viktor Elisov were flickering across the tv’s screen. On them he was shaking hands of high-ranking politicians and with world-class stars, had beautiful women at his side or a kid here and there. Some pictures were the obvious work of professional photographers at galas and events, others were likely the work of paparazzi and had probably been taken from far away through enlarging lenses. Most of them showed Elisov in recent years, but now and then there was a picture in between on which he was younger. On one an about 20-year old version of the man was shaking hands with Boris Jelzin, on another his about 30-ish self was captured presenting an enlarged check to the staff of a hospital, before the next showed him barely older in front of giant, gleaming ice statue that was a copy of one of Macau’s most luxurious casino’s. The picture had vanished again, when Asami interrupted.

“Go back”, he demanded, sitting upright and staring at the screen. There Viktor Elisov was again, in his early 30thies wearing a smoking, half of his face covered by a beard and his red hair falling in soft curls down to his cheeks. No one else was on that picture but the giant ice structure behind him, which dazzled and gleamed even though the picture was quite old.

‘22’, years Asami presumed and found that estimation verified by Mikhail naming the date of the picture.

“It was a New Year’s Eve celebration and at the same time the official opening of that casino.”

“That…”, Fei Long had started to speak, but Asami interrupted him.

“I was there”, he declared.

All eyes turned to him but the only pair which annoyed him was the one of Baishe’s leader. There seemed to be just too much incredulity in them.

“I _was_ ”, Asami confirmed in a voice allowing no contradiction. “I was a kid, 13 or 14. My father dragged me there.”

“And you sulked all evening?”, Mikhail asked laughing, silenced immediately by a tiny stir and sigh from Fei Long. The Chinese’s gaze however Asami still felt on himself, his eyes narrowed a bit if he saw correctly in the dim light.

“So, what do we know about Elisov today? And how does your homework help us get rid of Chernobog?”, Asami ignored the stare and looked up to Mikhail at the other end of the table. He felt like teasing _now_ that the Russian seemed to back down.

It was Yoh however who answered that question, taking the tablet pc back and pushing some maps and photos of a tropical island onto the tv screen.

“Right now, he is at one of his private lodgings, a mansion on Hainan Island. He comes there several times a year to meet his children, who are all beneath 12 years old and from different mothers. _This_ time however he will combine leisure with business as he is opening a five-star holiday resort there next Saturday. It will be a neat, small event with some Russian and Chinese investors, politicians and starlets. The guest list is not too long, about 200 people are being expected.”

“We will take that chance to meet him and to talk to him”, Fei Long interjected. “Even though there will be security it will be minimal as to not spoil the mood of his guests and it is very unlikely that he will answer a peaceful visit to parley with violence.”

Asami growled in a tune somewhere between consent and mockery. It was true: confronting Elisov on his own turf, surrounded by his own men was as dangerous as it was smart. Having his own army around, the Russian wouldn’t feel too threatened by his three unwelcomed guests and the evening’s event would still his hand even more so. But there was one little problem: “I don’t expect the name of any rival to appear on that guest list and I might have misplaced my invitation.”

“I haven’t”, Fei Long answered, turning his eyes onto Asami again.

It took the Japanese a moment to process that information. “Oh, pray tell, how did that happen?”

“Maybe Viktor Elisov just isn’t constantly forgetting that I am one of the most powerful men in all of Asia, … unlike some other people around here”, the Chinese answered, his eyes now gleaming with spite in the semi-darkness. “I get invitations like that a lot. I just never attend those events.”

“Are you doing business with him?”, Asami shot back, feeling his eyes narrow, but Fei Long just shrugged again.

“I’m not or I would have told you right about now.”

“So, do I get this right? Next Saturday the three of us jump onto some holiday flight to Hainan Island, take a cab to this hotel and crash his party?”

“No, we will not crash his party. We will pay him a respectful visit and ask him to talk to us in private to find some way forward. First of all, he is a businessman, and he will not want a scandal on his hands, let alone that evening’s event turning into a slaughterhouse. And if everything Mr. Kirishima here has told us is true, then this whole mess with Chernobog is the outcome of one of your underlings turning to backstabbing and not of some personal feud between you and Elisov.”

Asami leaned back in the seat, now throwing one of his arms onto the back rest. He flashed a dangerous look through the darkened room. “Oh, Mikhail had quite a hand in this mess as well.”

“That didn’t have anything to do with _you_ though”, the Russian laughed the accusation away. “I had been given a lucrative tip of how, when and where to get my hands onto some precious cargo and harming Chernobog at the same time. That was too tempting for me to let it pass. I only found out that _you_ were involved in all of that when they went after you, instead of me.”

The self-righteous grin was still on the Russian’s face, when Fei Long spoke again, not looking at either of the quarreling men but glaring towards the ceiling.

“If you behave like that on that evening, I’ll be happy with Elisov just shooting you two and taking me back to the party.”

Those words finally made the grin vanish and let the Russian’s shoulders sink a tiny bit, yet probably only Asami saw it as he had been watching the man. There were some things going on in this room that he couldn’t put his finger on. He wanted to know how Yoh had come to be there, but even more so, he wanted to know how Mikhail had managed to rise is Fei Long’s graces so much, he was allowed so close to him. Also, how Fei Long had ended up in the Russian’s Mini car, he had never found out, nor why Mikhail suddenly seemed all eager to help when the Chinese ever hardly looked at him in that room.

“We will bring our men there; We will have them in the vicinity in case we need their help. But only the three of us will enter the hotel”, Fei Long disrupted Asami’s train of thought.

Silence spread through the room for a short while, before the Japanese drew one hand over his face.

“Why will _you_ come? You said you’re not doing business with him and this is not _your_ mess”, he asked the Chinese, trying for his voice to sound a tiny bit conciliatory. After all _he_ had asked Fei Long for his help in this matter as he knew he would not stand a chance alone. What that had meant he had not known at that time. He had just awoken from a nearly 4-week-slumber hours ago, was overdosed on painkillers and caffeine, and had had problems to differentiate between reality, memories and imagination. But he had understood than that Fei Long had saved both him and Akihito, that he had protected them and had tried to clear away all the loose ends Chernobog had left in Hong Kong and Macau.

“I will come because it is _my_ name on that invitation and because I might help as a neutral mediator. And after all, because you two dragged me into this mess and I want to see it come to a happy end.”

Asami barked a laugh. “If I recall correctly, you got caught up in all of this, because you decided to meddle in _my_ affairs.”

“And if I recall correctly”, the Chinese retorted coolly, “you came to Hong Kong with Chernobog on your tail and without informing me. I wonder what would have happened if _I_ would have shown up in _your_ territory that way. Still, I didn’t interfere with your shady businesses until they started to affect me privately, and I might have been able to prevent being followed to your hideout if you hadn’t kept me in the dark in the first place.”

Asami felt a nasty smile tug on the corner of his lips, but he forbade it from forming. He hadn’t come to fight, but because he had asked Fei Long for his help and the Chinese had promised to. Also, there was a truth to those words, which he’d rather not pronounce. Placing the blame onto other’s shoulders was a game at which he had gotten quite good and he didn’t even do it just to free himself of the guilt. Often enough that kind of manipulation of others was a helpful gift. It undermined their self-esteem and reinforced his control over them.

With Fei Long however that had never worked in a satisfying way. First it had nearly destroyed and killed him, and after that any other attempt had never had the slightest effect on him at all.

“I will let you know where to meet me on Hainan island on Friday afternoon. How you get there is your own business. I take it your jet is still operational?”

“It is”, Asami answered the question put to him.

“We will draw our forces together at a base on Hainan Island, of which we will inform you about later”, Yoh explained, when Mikhail interrupted with a question.

“Are we preparing for a violent retaliation there?”

Until now Asami had assumed that the Russian and the other two men had had talked all of this through without him beforehand, but probably they hadn’t after all. Maybe on the contrary Fei Long had just sent out Mikhail as an errand boy, had taken all the information the man had brought him and had devised his plan from it without any consultation.

“We will have to take into account that Elisov might react with an attack on us, yes”, he explained now. “But our first attempt must remain amicable. Once he realizes that we have caught onto his connection to Chernobog he must understand that we want this all to come to a peaceful end for all of us, or this will drag us into a war which will not have any victories.”

“Well, then let’s hope that reasonable philanthropist smile he shows on those pictures there isn’t only a façade”, Asami growled ending on a hollow laugh.

Once again Fei Long shot him a livid look.

“I’m not less worried about the both of you not being reasonable. Maybe you should now start thinking about which sacrifices and reparations you are willing to pay in order to buy your safety back from him.”

Asami held the other’s gaze for several seconds, while the silence of the room was only disturbed by the quiet hum of the air conditioner.

“Are we finished here?”, he asked finally, to which Fei Long nodded.

“Yes, we are.”

When Asami got up, everybody else stood as well except for Mikhail. He still crouched on the antique cabinet, leaning forward so that his naked elbows rested on his knees and his chin on his fists.

Turning around in the doorframe Asami shot a glance back at Fei Long. “You let me know about that Hainan Island meeting point as soon as possible. I want to be able to prepare adequately.”

Fei Long looked back at him unblinkingly and nodded once again. “I will.”

“Later, then”, Asami said his goodbyes, but hadn’t taken two steps out of the room when he heard Yoh’s voice behind him.

“I will take you downstairs”, the Chinese said, when the lights of the room slowly turned back on and the tv was hidden once again behind the paneling. He exited behind the Japanese, closing the door to the conference room, then led the men down the corridor to the elegant elevator with its black marble inlays.

Suoh and Kirishima got into the lift first, with Asami and the Chinese following, and Yoh held a card in front of the card-reader which overwrote the control. Pressing L for Lobby now the lift would go down there and not stop anywhere else on the way.

With a whisper the doors closed, and the elevator started its journey downwards, while Asami regarded the other man in the smooth, dark marble that nearly worked as good as a mirror.

“Didn’t know you’re back”, he said at one point. If he wanted any questions answered it was right about time, as the lift’s speed was quite fast. It made Asami’s ears pop several times.

“Have been back for about 2 months”, Yoh disclosed, meeting the Japanese’s eyes in the glossy, black surface.

“I thought he had you murdered”, stating that Asami found a smirk form on his lips but couldn’t even place why it was there. He hadn’t wanted Yoh to get killed on the one hand, he also hadn’t expected Fei Long to let him live. But least of all had he ever expected that he would see Yoh ever again and at the side of the man he had betrayed for years. So maybe that smile wasn’t there because others hadn’t acted as they had been supposed to in his opinion, but because he had misjudged them so thoroughly. Then that little mouth twitch of spite was aiming at himself.

“Seems your master has quite a forgiving nature”, he heard himself trill on, nonetheless.

“He is not my master”, Yoh proclaimed. “I’m not with Baishe anymore and I am not working _for_ but _with_ him.”

Then he turned his head to look straight at Asami, when the elevator chimed its arrival to the Lobby area. “And you should know best. After all, he has forgiven _you_.”


	2. Mikhail

Only when the door had closed behind Yoh and the three Japanese, was he finally alone with Fei Long, who had turned his back onto him seeing the others off. Mikhail climbed down from the ancient cabinet, stood straight up and looked at the other man, who now slowly moved to face him. Their eyes held onto each other for a few seconds before the Russian ruffled his blonde locks.

“I’ve missed you”, he sighed deeply.

Three weeks had passed since he had awoken with Fei Long in his arms in his own bed. Three weeks since he had made love to him, with those amethyst eyes burning up into his own and those marvelous lips moaning his name. Three weeks after he had told Fei Long that he loved him… and after Fei Long had made no promises but had admitted that on that one morning, he was happy.

In the sheer endless days in between, Mikhail had flown back and forth between the greatest cities of Russia and China, gathering intel, pressing information out of people, uprooting traces almost lost in the depth of professional cover-ups and badly managed archives, and all contact he had had with Fei Long had been short messages that never ever so slightly gave in to his desperate and childish attempts at flirting.

Thinking about finally meeting the dragon of Baishe again had made him fear that he would be angry with the other man, but right now there was nothing even close to that feeling inside him. Instead, his insides burned with the need to touch the other, who had just sat steps away for minutes, out of reach more than ever before with Asami Ryuichi there.

And now that they were finally alone Mikhail found himself glued to the spot more than he ever had. Finally seeing the one man he loved like nothing else in his life in front of him, had made him freeze and unable to speak save for that little truth he just muttered. And the cold shoulder Fei Long had given him since the moment he had entered the room now only added to the intense flood of petrifying doubts that suddenly rushed into his mind.

But he didn’t even need to do anything.

Fei Long drew closer slowly, raising one hand when he was right in front of the other and brushing his fingers through those soft, blonde curls.

“I missed you as well”, he whispered without a smile, his almond eyes slowly blinking at the other. A pain seared through Mikhail’s stomach. Straining every muscle, he kept himself from flinging himself onto the other man, but he could not prevent _all_ reaction.

Rushing forward with his head he caught Fei Long’s lips with his own and for a moment from inches away those eyes still stared at him, while no other movement could be felt. Then Fei Long closed his lids and his lips parted to allow Mikhail’s tongue in and greet it with his own.

Within a second they clung to each other, arms pulling each other closer, fingers clawing at hair and clothes, and Fei Long pushed the taller man backwards until he once more sat on the cabinet and he could climb unto his lap.

Breaking the kiss, Mikhail suddenly jerked the Chinese’s head back by grabbing a fist of his jet-black hair, exposing his throat to his lips and teeth.

“Don’t leave marks where they can be seen”, Fei Long pleaded with him in between gasps of pleasure.

“I know, I know”, the Russian answered smiling, undoing the first buttons of the white Cheongsam, to press his lips unto the other’s collarbone and suck on the silken skin there. Like he had done before, Fei Long grasped the blonde scalp with one hand pulling him even closer, pushing his teeth into his flesh. ‘Just a tiny bit more’, Mikhail thought in a mind already becoming hazy, ‘and there will be blood’.

The Chinese’s other hand had in the meantime pulled the cyan shirt out of the other man’s blue jeans and had found his way up to the muscular chest. Hot and piercing the fingers pressed against Mikhail’s flesh, the palm cupping his nipple and his heartbeat thumping on against the skin contact. It felt like Fei Long was holding on to him. No, more than that: like Fei Long was feasting on the heavy beating of his heart which only seemed to accelerate by the second. For all Mikhail cared, he would gladly allow the other man to drain him off all his blood if that was needed to keep him alive.

He caught the beauty still crouching on top of him around the neck, pulling him down again into a kiss, while his free hand slipped between their crotches, cupping Fei Long’s already almost erect manhood through the silk fabric of his pants.

At least he definitely was as needed as Mikhail as himself.

But the Chinese pushed him away, his eyes squeezed shut, a tiny tear glimmering on his long, black lashes. A blush burned on his cheek bones and his lips were slightly parted, while he gasped for air. Mikhail watched him out of blue eyes spilling over with feelings he knew he would never be able to fathom with words because no language known to mankind could ever describe them. In this very moment, obviously fighting with all those complicated emotions, with want and need and better judgement, with caution and foresight and pride, Fei Long was more beautiful than he had ever been.

“Not here”, he finally managed to say, opening his eyes and blinking at the other man, his voice still pleading and far from the usual cold tune of command.

“We could go upstairs”, Mikhail suggested, already assuming that that would not be an option. It was late in the afternoon and that 13-year-old with whom the dragon of Baishe shared his private loft was very likely up there. It seemed to Mikhail like Fei Long tried to shield the boy away from the outside world. And even if he was misjudging, he had no hopes that the Chinese beauty was already willing to disclose whatever was happening between him and the Russian to anybody as of yet.

“No…”, the dragon breathed as expected. “Tao is there.”

It only made Mikhail chuckle, because he had anticipated this. He drew out of his pocket the plan B he had had all along and pushed the little plastic card into the waistband of the Cheongsam’s pants. Fei Long sat up straight in surprise looking down to where he was still sitting on Mikhail’s lap.

“What is that?”

“The keycard to my room at the Mandarin Oriental.”

He very much felt like a child waiting for the time to open his presents on Christmas. He had been staring out of the window, watching the skyline of Hong Kong slowly turning from blueish grey to yellow and red, and finally to purple before the sun sat far beyond Lantau Island in the west. For a while he had been sitting on the bed, then in one of the leather seats, then in the other, then on the desk. He had even leaned against the wall with crossed arms for a while and finally sat down on the carpeted floor. It really didn’t matter. The waiting was the problem, not the position in which he did so.

When there finally was a slight knock on the door he nearly jumped out of his skin. Rushing onto his feet so fast, that his blood wasn’t able to keep up, he had to grab the wall for a moment to not lose his balance.

With a little click the door was unlocked and then pushed open. Fei Long stepped inside and closed the door right behind him softly, turning on the light in the entry area of the large room. Save for one of the bedside lamps Mikhail had left all the other light sources unlit to have a better sight of the city outside, and now he was grateful for that decision.

The heavy bronze frame of the mirror at the wardrobe and the warm, dim shimmer of the paneled lighting in the entrance illuminated Fei Long golden. If he had still been wearing that white Cheongsam he would have looked just like an angel. But he had redressed.

When Mikhail stepped closer the smaller man wrapped himself out of the long, black cashmere-coat, hanging it onto the wardrobe, and the breath caught in the Russian’s throat.

Fei Long looked up to him with no surprise showing on his face but a tiny smile tugging on his lips.

“Do you like what you see, Mr. Arbatov?”, he asked, cocking his head to one side.

Mikhail smacked his lips, while the Chinese beauty slowly turned fully around once. What he was wearing wasn’t very extraordinary. It was just that on Fei Long it was a sight to behold.

His long legs were wrapped in black leather pants so tight they might have been sprayed on. Despite the cold outside he didn’t wear socks, so that his bare ankles were showing between the hem of the trousers and his shiny black Budapesters with an ornamented silver toe cap. The cleavage of the strangely cut black hoodie he had donned reached down almost to his navel, but the front was held together by two dozen thin silver chains.

All in black, with that obsidian hair streaming down around his face and the gold light illuminating his skin, Fei Long surely still locked like an angel, yet one who had come to convince his prey to sell his soul to the devil and to be dragged away on raven wings into the pits of hell. For all he cared for, Mikhail would have given in to ultimate abandon then and there.

“What are you wearing?”, he heard himself whisper, breathless and still grappling with his senses.

Stepping right in front of him, Fei Long turned his back to the taller man, then took Mikhail’s hands and placed them on his hip bones which could be felt sharply through the leather.

“Once or twice a year I like to go to some club. Pretend I am somebody else. Just dance”, he explained in a slowly trailing voice, leaning his head to one side, nestling his forehead against the other’s cheek.

Mikhail closed his eyes, drawing in deep breaths of Fei Long’s scent, feeling his warmth seeping through both their closes into his own skin, moving with the slow motions of the other.

“Are you telling me that you can dance?”, he asked in a whisper, turning his head slightly, so that his lips brushed over Fei Long’s eyebrow, his forehead and hair.

“A bit”, the other answered, rolling his hips stronger against the other’s crotch right away, and Mikhail pushed his clothed, swollen manhood hard against the crack hardly discernable beneath the tight leather.

Keeping his eyes closed he could imagine them there, in the midst of some club, the light and beat drowning the world out around them, nothing left but the sensation of feeling the other close. He wondered if in another world as two civilians their paths could ever had crossed. If destiny had at some point rolled dices and had determined that they should be together, no matter what lives they led. But that was nothing but wishful thinking, he realized, trailing his lips down Fei Long’s cheekbone. Because even _now_ he wasn’t sure they were destined to be.

“I won’t promise you anything”, Fei Long had said three weeks ago. And there was no reason to hope that the dragon of Baishe had come here for more than marvelous sex and strong arms that wouldn’t hurt him.

But now the other leaned his head back to catch the Russian’s lips with his own and all thinking subsided.

While those hips still rolled back against his, Mikhail let his hands wander up Fei Long’s body, lifting the shirt at the same time, what made the tiny chains jingle quietly. When he found his nipples, he pinched them hard and Fei Long gasped into his mouth before catching his lower lip with his teeth and biting it softly.

Mikhail snapped his head back laughing. “Naughty”, he hummed, then he pulled the shirt further upwards, and the Chinese obeyed by raising his arms.

“Pretty”, Mikhail called the hoodie and threw it away across his shoulder just the same. “But you could have come with nothing but that coat on for all I care.”  
“That would have been too cold”, Fei Long objected. He reached backwards with both hands to entangle his fingers behind Mikhail’s neck and pull the taller man’s upper body forward while at the same time he pushed his hips back against the hard manhood clearly discernable beneath the jeans.

“I can’t wait”, he panted when Mikhail’s teeth raked across the skin of his throat.

Hardly keeping it together from the combined sensation of feeling Fei Long writhe in his embrace and hearing his wanton words, Mikhail fought for restraint, nonetheless.

“Need to prepare you first”, he groaned, straightening up. There was lube in his nightstand, but Fei Long pulled his arms back around himself.

“No…”, he whispered, “I did that at home.”

He looked up from beneath his long lashes, his amethyst eyes dark and dilated.

“You make me go crazy”, Mikhail chuckled, wrapping himself around the smaller form for a moment, squeezing him so tightly with a little more strength he might have broken him, but Fei Long was not as frail as he looked.

Luckily! Because the idea of the beautiful dragon preparing himself for sex with him later on made Mikhail almost snap. He tore open the buttons of the leather pants, pulling them and the underwear down just beneath that tiny peach ass. Fei Long leaned forward, grabbing for support at the heavy frame of the giant mirror, but that made his hair fall over his face, so the Russian caught a fistful of it and pulled the Chinese’s head back up. With tensing biceps, the beauty clung to the mirror, arching his back and squeezing his eyes shut, while redness burned on his cheeks.

Mikhail guided the head of his cock with his free hand between the cleavage of the other’s ass, which was bound tightly by the narrow leather pants, and when he found his goal, he pushed himself in with one forceful thrust.


	3. Sakazaki

He sighed an annoyed “Fuck!”, when the ashes fell on his fingers. He had lit the cigarette some minutes ago, but hadn’t taken more than one or two draws, forgetting it altogether while the heat was nearing his skin and dark thoughts occupied his mind. Grabbing the ashtray, he put the butt out, then resumed to stare from the balcony into the sunlight of the tropical island, squinting his eyes. Down in the garden, which reminded more of the French Riviera shown in movies than of anything one had expected to find in China, Viktor Elisov was playing hide-and-seek or catch or whatever with two of his children, while a third was sitting in a tiny canoe, rowing it in circles around the pool.

Even if anyone of them would look up and towards the house, would find the balcony of the guest room and see its windows opened, Sakazaki was sure, they would not be able to spot him sitting here, watching them. The sun of the late morning was burning down over the roof of the mansion from that direction and he sat in a low chair where the shadows of the darkened room still engulfed him. It wasn’t even his room, that one was in the corridor opposite and didn’t have a view of the garden.

The real occupant of this room was still in bed, now and then stirring and moaning in his sleep won from painkillers and sleeping pills.

Perhaps Sakazaki should just get up, walk over there and strangle him. Squeeze his face with a pillow until he stopped breathing. Certainly, that wouldn’t help with anything, but it should be satisfying. At least a little bit.

Yet he remained in his seat. Burying his face in his hands he returned to the same thoughts that kept haunting him, since days, since weeks, without end.

How could all of this have gone so wrong, where should he have drawn the line and jumped ship? And how the fuck could he have misjudged it all so thoroughly?

Wandering back weeks, no, months indeed, inside his memories made it feel like he could just take it all back. Rewind the clock. He should have overheard, overlooked, overseen, but he hadn’t. He should not have sold that tiny bit of information to Mitarai, should not have given that little hint to Mikhail Arbatov. But how should he have anticipated that this way he would catapult himself into a tug-of-war between the Russian bratva and some terror-organization? And how the fuck should he have known that Sudou was meddling with such big players, or that he would risk everything, anything just to lick the boots of Asami Ryuichi.

The thought alone made Sakazaki growl.

This all had started out as a bit of fun. Like it always did. And usually, such things never slipped his control. He was too smart, too cautious, too sly. Would never get in too deep, would never be the one people put a finger to later and spoke of with certainty.

Like every other time when he had spilled someone else’s secrets it had been for the lulz, not much more. Of course, he normally stood to win something from it, and not just entertainment, but this time…

Yes, maybe that had been the biggest problem to start with. This time he had found something on his hands that had been a big mess from the start and a great opportunity even so. Dangerous, yes, because you did not meddle into affairs that might antagonize Asami Ryuichi, but promising just because of that. Getting rid of the dark king, that would have been quite nice. Having Mikhail do the job and Sakazaki’s name staying out of it, even better.

But no!

Sudou had needed to get all emotional! He had been willing to betray his boss, until that boss found out and then he was suddenly all whiny and wistful. What a cunt!

And that other kid? Takaba Akihito? He had needed to get himself involved as well. Another thorn in the side of what could have been a great endeavor. Both together, the one with his nosiness and naivety, the other with his jealousy and neediness – it would have been better they had both died in that Tokyo warehouse. Fucking cunts! Two fucking cunts!

Of course, that would have been the end of it, but Sakazaki would have been in the clear _then_. He would have heard of it days later, Mikhail would have thanked him for the hint, and _he_ would just have lived it down and would have forgotten about it all.

“But, no”, he whispered with a growl and took another gulp from his morning-Cuba-Libre which was already more thawed ice-cubes than rum and coke. What other pleasures where there though, being grounded on some tropical island in a giant mansion with a lot of staff? It was very much like a 5-star-holiday-restort, with pool and the beach nearby and a large spa area; including full-time service and a lot of peace. Not that he had ever liked traveling like that. It was boring a fuck!

Sadly, it hadn’t ended in that Tokyo warehouse. Sudou had lived, and Sakazaki had had to choose a side, and he would under no circumstances crawl to lick the heels of Asami Ryuichi. Therefore, he had gotten Sudou out of that hospital, had hidden him with the help of Mikhail, and that again: it fucking could have worked! If the guys Sudou had gotten himself involved with weren’t complete fucking maniacs!

Sakazaki had to flex his fists fiercely to keep himself from walking over to the bed and punch the kid in the face. Why the hell – even more so: _how_ the hell did Sudou get himself involved with Chernobog?

The name hadn’t meant anything to Sakazaki, but _who_ they were, _what_ they were, he had figured out fast enough, after Sudou had dragged him out of Mikhail’s protection. That had very likely been the last stop on the route at which he could have jumped off the train before it crashed. He should have waved Sudou goodbye, should have laid low in the Russian’s protection until it all was over, but… that would have meant waiting as well.

Just like now. Waiting. Waiting for others to act without a chance of finding out what was happening.

No, of course he didn’t like to be involved when drama hit, but he liked to witness it, especially when he knew that he had contributed to it without anybody’s knowledge. But drama happening or not happening somewhere else without him finding out for … like now: days, weeks, months! Fucking blasted hell!

From that little tiny piece of information, he had overheard around Sudou, it had just piled up and higher up onto a giant heap of shit. But the worst was his own misjudgment, because he had only come to realize what a mess this all was outside that Macau warehouse.

Before that he had gotten a little hint from Mitarai from where that cunt Akihito had phoned in, had shared it with Chernobog, had been taken to that mountain temple by some of those thugs so that he would identify the kid. But Akihito had not been there. They had burned down the temple instead and had left a letter of warning.

It sounded like child’s play now, and he looked up again, squinting into the blue sky and shook his head in ultimate annoyance. Maybe whatever ailment was turning Sudou’s brain mellow was contagious.

From that day on they had been stuck with Chernobog and it was a blasting miracle that Yuri and Aaron or any of the other guys had never figured out that Sudou’s biggest hope had been that they would just kill each other off until there was no one left.

Sure, it had been quite a masterpiece to get all those parties there: Asami Ryuichi, as well as Chernobog and Mikhail Arbatov, and have them get rid of each other.

They would have been home free had it worked out. Then and there Sudou had proven what Sakazaki had expected. That he _had_ a brilliant mind. But again, Sudou had felt the need to make this all personal. _He_ had wanted to shoot Asami himself. He had wanted vengeance for a romantic idea like a fucking broken heart. It was unbelievable!

‘Just throttle him! Just go over there and throttle him!’, Sakazaki thought to himself, cracking the knuckles of his hands.

And that had not been the only thing that had been fucking unforeseeable.

Why the fuck did people feel the need to get emotional over business anyway? Why did a tank like Yuri need to drag family issues into this? Why did Aaron just the same as Sudou think that _he_ should be the one to see Asami Ryuichi die? For all Sakazaki cared, he just wanted him dead! He didn’t give a fuck who would do it or how he died! He just wanted him _dead_!

And thanks to that other unexpected interference he very likely wasn’t! What the hell had Baishe been doing there? They were rivals of both the Russian bratva and Asami, and here it looked like they had come to rescue them.

They had almost spotted him dragging a half-dead Sudou out of the rubble. Crouching for cover behind some debris in a building about to crumble to dust had really got him thinking whether any of this was worth it.

He could have just put Sudou down there, could have walked out of the rubble, could allow himself to be questioned by Baishe. Would that have been a way out?

Maybe he could have found some information to sell to Liu Fei Long. Some intel on Mikhail? Some tidbits about Asami? But would that have been enough for the triad boss to save him from the other two men who might have figured out by know that _he_ had been contributing to their little miseries? Probably not. More likely it would have just added another party to the crossfire in which he already found himself. As if he hadn’t enough on his plate already!

Also, what difference did it make if that dragon was called beautiful if its claws were still deadly, and Liu Fei Long’s reputation wasn’t one that had helped getting Sakazaki’s hope back up.

So, he had clung to Sudou, had pulled him out of the building once he had found a chance to sneak out, and had returned to Chernobog’s hideout, hurting and exhausted, and the kid he had been dragging along nearly dead.

Well, but he had lived once again. He had been shot in the left shoulder and right thigh, and had lost a whole lot of blood, but the most damage had been caused by falling debris serving him a brain injury and several broken bones. Most of them were almost healed or had been fixed with rods and screws implanted to repair the fracture, so that now nothing but the surgical incisions could be seen. Only the headaches would not end and made him hooked on painkillers.

“How did you get us here?”, Sakazaki asked into the room, waiting for a moment if there would be an answer, but Sudou only kept breathing deeply in his sedative-induced sleep.

Well, he had not really had a choice in that warehouse. It had been choosing Chernobog, or just playing dead there and wait until the building crashed down killing both of them.

But he had not expected _this_. He had not foreseen that within two weeks he would find himself in a tropical paradise, a guest of one of the top ten thousand of Russia.

Viktor Elisov had now taken to play the shark for his children, splashing around the pool, diving after them. The noises of joy carried up here by the warm breeze made Sakazaki put on a vile grin.

If those kids only knew!

They were all somewhere around 6, 7, 8 and Elisov had made it very clear that his two guests were allowed to move freely on the grounds but that they should not talk to his children.

Yet, what stories Sakazaki could tell them! They would be all ears; of that he was certain.

Then again, that made him wonder _why_ him and Sudou were here in the first place? Why had Elisov taken them in? Did he want to use the information they had? Did he plan to sell them off? Was it simply out of the kindness of heart?

“Hah!”, Sakazaki laughed out loud. That would be a first!

After the mess at the warehouse Chernobog had fled the city, licking its wounds, and had contacted the one behind the curtains. The one who had once gathered all those misfits and punks together like a shepherd calling in his flock and had given them a purpose by letting them do what they were best at: spreading violence and scaring the shit out of people.

Under his rule they had prospered, they had fledged, and now they had been shoved off to some hideout on that same island just like some naughty child.

At this point it was all just guesswork for Sakazaki: Was Elisov lying low while waiting to see what Chernobog’s screw-up in Macau meant for him? Was he actually planning on some retribution against those who had cost him so dearly? Had he taken him and Sudou in, because he wanted his friends close, but his enemies closer, or because they could indeed help him with erasing those from the face of the earth who might have caught onto even the smallest trace linking the businessman to the terrorist group.

Many other questions remained unanswered as well: Had Baishe in fact found both Asami and his little cunt in the warehouse, and had they managed to save both their lives? If yes, where were they now? What was Asami planning, what Mikhail? Both weren’t the types to back down. Was Elisov really riding out the storm, while Asami’s organization got to war with the Russian bratva, and Baishe choosing one side or just entering as a third party?

“Oh, fuck this!”, Sakazaki hissed and smashed his fist so hard onto the small table next to him, that his glass fell off and shattered on the floor, spilling its contents all around.

His mind had been going in circles like this for weeks now, with no answer to any of these questions.

The only one who might bring any news was Aaron, who was with his men somewhere, anywhere on this fucking giant island of holiday resorts, tropical forests and beaches, but he hadn’t called in for almost 10 days.

Down in the garden, from the middle of the pool, Viktor Elisov now looked up into Sakazaki’s direction, and the Japanese raised his hand… just in case. But the Russian looked away a moment later and resumed playing with his kids.

Once he got weary of his guests, he might as well shoot them both in their sleep and take his kids for a swim down at the beach while his loyal staff got rid of the mess – and any proof.


	4. Asami

Akihito had been taken to a small, private island just off the coast of Okinawa, where European royals and Arabian sheikhs came to spend their honeymoons. His friends had been brought there for a holiday including their families, while Asami took care of their unpaid vacation and any bills or duties that they had had to leave behind in Tokyo – all to make Akihito happy.

Yet he wasn’t.

Yesterday he hadn’t even answered the video call and the days before he had been rather taciturn.

Once again at the agreed time Asami opened the app on his notebook, in a Hong Kong mansion he had moved into courtesy of Fei Long, and waited… Waited…

It had been a minute, when, finally, the call was answered. An iMac’s camera allowed him to look into a beautifully furnished and decorated bedroom about a thousand miles away, but the young man sitting inside that room was staring gloomily away from the lens, had his arms crossed, and pouted.

Akihito was dressed in a sleeveless, white top that showed much of his skin and proved that he hadn’t been out in the sun for days. But at least he had gained some weight, the bruises were all gone, and his hair was slowly growing back.

Asami leaned his elbows unto the table and his chin onto his entangled fingers. He could watch the brat like this for a long while, just knowing that he was save. Save enough to sulk and complain.

If only the view didn’t make his muscles tense against the pain searing up inside him! If only the big, gloomy eyes and sulky lips didn’t make him want to jump onto his jet to get into that room as quickly as possible.

He closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and when he opened them again, he looked away from the monitor. Still, he saw Akihito shrug in the corner of his eye.

When he faced the notebook again, the brat had turned on the chair towards the camera, had put one foot up on the seat, was leaning one arm on his knee and his head against his hand. He didn’t look a bit less gloomy but know he was biting his lower lip.

“I’m sorry”, Asami said, yet not very loudly.

He was still not used to that kind of talk and wondered that it didn’t even leave a bad taste on his tongue. With one hand he rubbed across his lips nonetheless, but there was no stain.

“I am angry with you”, Akihito stated, his voice conveying his mood perfectly.

“I know”, Asami answered. And he had all right to be. Akihito was his last straw connecting him to the light. The last way out of the abyss. _He_ had managed to change him, to make him dare to voice what he would otherwise never had even admitted to himself.

 _Akihito_ had saved him.

Where Fei Long had pulled him from the rubble and had saved his life, Akihito had saved his soul.

And it felt strange for him even giving in to thoughts like this. To allowing them, to revel in them, while he just watched that boy, the video-call transporting him here by satellite from 1000 miles away. In a way Akihito was his guardian angel, and he had almost paid with his life for that.

He should have stayed in that truck! Even better, Asami should never have brought him to the Macau warehouse! Once there, given Akihito’s character, how could he have believed that the brat would sit still and wait for him to return. Even Fei Long had berated Asami for underestimating the kid’s willfulness.

It was this very reason why he had now shipped him off to some small island on which there was no one else but his friends, Asami’s men guarding all of them and the staff provided by the exclusive location. All information going in or out was closely monitored, and any way off that island was only possible by ship or helicopter. Not that in a worst-case scenario he wouldn’t put it past Akihito to try to row himself over the Pacific.

But he would have to find a boat first, and they had all been made sure of…

Akihito now tilted his head to one side. His hair was already long enough a fall a bit into his eyes.

“What are you doing?”, he asked surly.

“I’m staring at you.”

“No… I mean… wherever you are.”

“I’m in Hong Kong”, Asami answered attempting a tiny smile. It somehow felt rather sad on his lips. “I’m still in Hong Kong. The house belongs to Fei Long. We’re staying until we have set up our own base anew.”

Akihito bit his lower lip once again. His eyes wandered around for a moment and then fixed themselves on somewhere to the right and outside of the camera’s view.

“How is he?”

It took Asami a second to understand, whom he was referring to, but there really weren’t many options to choose from.

“Fei Long? He is fine, I’m sure.”

The both of them hadn’t met since that incident on the casino ship – at least not with both of them being lucid and conscious. Once the doctors had declared that they would allow Akihito to wake up from his artificial coma, he had been put on Asami’s jet together with the world-renowned neurosurgeon that had been flown in to treat his brain injury weeks before. But when Fei Long had come to the Queen Anne hospital to see him off, Akihito had still been in deep sleep.

“You always sound grumpily, when you talk about him”, Akihito complained and Asami couldn’t help but grin.

“Well, maybe I am just adjusting my mood to yours.”

It didn’t have the effect he had hope for, because now the kid sat straight up, copied Asami’s pose with his elbows on the desk and started to stare him down. As if he could!

“How long is this going to take? How long are you planning to keep me shoved out of sight this time?”

The grin was already gone, he realized, and felt his eyes become sharp.

“What I am doing is for your protection. I cannot sort this out while having to worry about you at the same time.”

“I can look out for myself!” Akihito shouted so loud the speakers of the notebook crackled.

“I know that!”, Asami snapped back and without any doubt in his voice. “I know that, Akihito. But right now, you are in not fit to fight or look out for yourself.”

For a second he could see the brat’s nostrils flare in rage and his jaws grinding, but the anger seeped from those beautiful, large eyes and Akihito looked down at the table.

He groaned in apparent defeat and despair, raising his hands in front of his face and hiding behind them.

“I want to be with you”, he whispered.

Surprisingly it took Asami a moment until he could answer: “I know.” He simply didn’t want his voice to sound weak.

“I want to be with you as well”, he added a moment later. It was the truth. He would have kept Akihito by his side, with him, in his arms, if there had been any chance of protecting him here.

But how could he have made sure he could shield the kid from any harm when he had needed to ask for help himself? And even though by the doctors’ verdicts there were no long-term aftereffects to be expected from his head injury, Akihito had had some problems with disorientation and tiny black-outs of his memory. He would change from his pajamas into his jeans and shirt and would change back right away, or would walk into the shower fully dressed. In the beginning after he had woken up it had happened quite often and had now become rather rare, but little occurrences like that alone were too much of a danger for anybody around in this situation.

Of course, Fei Long had offered to hide Akihito, but Asami had declined _that_ right away. If he ever let the brat out of his own hands again, he had promised himself, then only into the hands of his own men with himself being somewhat in control.

“So… how long?”, Akihito now asked looking back at the camera again. He only looked sad now. So sad that Asami didn’t bring himself to not throw in a tiny bit of hope.

“If we’re lucky, about ten days”, he answered in barely a whisper. He didn’t want it to sound like anything close to a promise, didn’t want any confidence to be heard out of those words.

Nonetheless, Akihito’s eyes brightened up and widened.

It felt like a stab to the heart a thousand miles away and Asami sighed.

“Maybe. I don’t know! If we’re really lucky. We have… there is a plan. I have no idea if it will work, but it might. And if it does there probably won’t be a single bullet nor any drop of blood. But I can’t promise.”

“Ten days?”, Akihito gasped like _that_ was all he had understood from those words.

“This isn’t a promise!”, Asami declared sharply once again.

The brat leaned onto his desk heavily, anyway, looking at the camera in close-up intently. “Ok, ok! But try! Will you try?!”

“Yes”, Asami growled. “I will do my best.”

It was a good transition, he suddenly thought and started to smile deviously. “Now, be a good boy. You got my present, didn’t you?”

Akihito sat straight up again and his cheeks blushed right away. “Yeah… I did”, he admitted meekly, his eyes slowly trailing towards some point in the room the camera didn’t capture. “But it’s too big.”  
Asami felt supportive: “No, it’s not. It’s smaller than mine. Go and get it.”

And Akihito did. For a few seconds he was gone from the screen and all that was left was the view of the large canopy bed with its white linens and the silken curtains. Then with a thump a package was heaved onto the desk and blocked most of the view. Opening the box Akihito reached inside and got out the large, rather realistic dildo – his cheeks now burning crimson red.

Next, he fished out a tube of lube and placed it on the desk as well, before he pushed the box away. Leaning back in the chair, he crossed his arms again, regarding the giant silicon piece with a pretty shaky look, before facing the camera again.

“It looks _really_ big.”  
“Don’t be a chicken. I know the measurements, it’s smaller than mine. I promise”, he waited for the words to take effect and knew that they had, when Akihito shrugged slightly. Then he continued: “Right now, that is all I can offer you, but I will pay you back, if you’re well-behaved.”

He flashed his eyes towards his notebook and knew that the effect was even visible a thousand miles away, when Akihito started to suck on his lower lip.

“I wouldn’t call this well-behaved”, the kid hummed, but then he shoved himself a bit away from the desk together with the chair, so that more of him could be seen on screen. Slowly he let his hands wander down at his sides across the fabric of the tight shirt, then he lifted it, his fingers crawling upwards inch by inch, baring a bit more skin with every movement until he finally pulled the cloth off over his head. He stood up then, but had been wearing nothing but pants to start with. Very likely he hadn’t left his room the whole day once again, but right now Asami didn’t want to think of that.

All he wanted to do was to imagine how it would feel to touch him. To reach through the screen which made it seem like Akihito was _so_ close. To feel his skin, his warmth, his steamy breath, to smell him, hear his little pants and moans.

 _He_ should be the one dragging those pants down those legs now, _his_ hands should push Akihito to kneel on that chair, that tiny ass up in the air and exposed, _his_ fingers should be the ones onto which the lube was now squirted and which then played with that tight opening before slowing pushing inside.

“Ha!”, Akihito gasped, his eyes closed, though he still tried to keep his face somewhat turned towards the camera, while he made sure that his ass could be seen perfectly. He had to flex a bit to do that and Asami was very thankful for the effort.

For a while he even closed his eyes, listening to that needy, moaning voice magically resounding around him, while Akihito prepared himself. Asami even moved his fingers, imagining he had shoved them in that hot tightness.

When he heard the chair creak, he looked up again. Akihito was now preparing the dildo with lube. It had a large, heavy base that was supposed to fix it to the ground, and a very natural coloring and built, including veins and a perfect head.

Finishing with that Akihito took one last close look at the camera. “I can’t believe you make me do this!”, he complained but now there was no indignation in his eyes, only lust. He turned around, placed the large tool on the seat and climbed onto the chair himself, each knee on one side of the dildo’s base. Once again, he half turned, so that Asami would see his face, while he clawed his fingers onto the backrest.

Then, slowly, and moaning loudly through opened lips, he let himself sink onto the silicon pole, allowing it to fill him all up until he reached the base and there was nothing left he could still get inside him.


	5. Fei Long

He awoke to a room full of grey morning light and two blue eyes looking at him.

With a sigh he stirred, turning half away and shutting his lids again.

“Why are you staring at me?”, he asked in a whisper, his voice still nearly asleep. There had been no really bad dreams lately, but he had never been a good sleeper. This night however felt like it had been one long sanctuary of black oblivion.

“Because I can’t believe you’re still here”, the blonde man answered, rolling himself over closer. He squeezed his head into the pillow next to Fei Long, nestling in his black hair, and rubbed the tip of his nose against the other’s cheek.

The Chinese shrugged away an inch, but then didn’t feel the strength or need or will to withdraw anymore. He allowed himself to relax and just lie there, his eyes still closed.

“Last time I woke up here”, Mikhail hummed on after maybe a minute, “I was alone but for the mean cold sun shining in through the window.”

“How philosophical!”, Fei Long testified and couldn’t prevent himself from smiling. Yet he opened one eye and squinted at the uncovered, giant windows for a moment.

“There is no sun”, he informed about his discovery, then turned his head to look at the man so close to him, he could feel his gentle breath on his skin. “Is this another room?”

“Can’t you tell by the room number?”, Mikhail asked. He pushed the tip of his nose a bit harder against Fei Long’s cheekbone.

“I didn’t look for the room number. I just followed you.”

With a low chuckle the Russian pulled him closer. “I am planning to have sex with you in each and every single one of these rooms here.”

Fei Long had to twist his eyes to look at Mikhail now.

“How many rooms are there?”

He felt the taller man shrug. “Some 500? 600?”

“Hah!”, the Chinese laughed, rolling onto his side to turn his back to the other, but still not struggling to get away. He could feel Mikhail’s muscles holding onto him, the heat of their skin seeping into each other.

“That will take a long time”, he calculated wearily. He could just fall asleep again like this.

“Not if we book _all_ the rooms on one floor at the same time and work them all through in one day.”

This time he could not keep himself from chuckling quietly. “Is that _you_ boasting of your stamina?”

“Do you have any complains or doubts about my stamina?”, Mikhail retorted looking up with a pout and pretending to be sulking.

“No”, Fei Long answered factually.

“Good”, the Russian laid his head back down. “But we might have to close the curtains on some of those rooms, or half the city will see how the dragon of Baishe is being spooned by the Russian mafiya.”

With a sigh, Fei Long pushed the arm draped around him away and sat up. He didn’t do it with force, but Mikhail looked taken aback all the same.

“Sorry?”, he whispered in Russian, as if he wasn’t sure there actually was something he should apologize for.

The Chinese just answered with a short shake of his head, then began to trail his fingers through his hair as a replacement for a brush. He checked the time at the alarm clock on one of the nightstands then sighed again.

“I have to go. I have to meet with someone.”

Mikhail didn’t answer right away. Still lying there, one head propped up on a hand he sucked on his lower lip and seemed to wonder if it was safe to make another jest. He only dared after Fei Long had turned to look at him and couldn’t help but allow a little smile onto his face. The Russian bratva leader seemed pretty shy at this moment.

Finally, Mikhail swallowed and then managed to speak: “Someone I should be jealous about?”

The other man snickered. “No. It’s my lawyer.”

“Well, is he good-looking?”

“No, he is not.”

With a slight nod Mikhail seemed to be satisfied with that. He started to trail the fingers of one hand up and down Fei Long’s arm.

“So… will I see you tonight? Will you have dinner with me?”

Fei Long looked at him and realized that right now, Mikhail did not manage to meet his eyes. They had never had dinner together, had never really been out together in the public except for meeting in the Lobby of the Kowloon InterContinental for some minutes the first time and in that dark, half-empty bar the second time Fei Long had looked the other up. This now however sounded like a date… actually, he never had had any date in his life.

He had to think about that. About what it meant, but not now, so he was glad for the excuse: “Not today. I have some businesses to attend to. Maybe another time. We’ll see.”

“Yeah”, Mikhail answered hastily, lying back down on the bad and crossing his hands underneath his head. He changed the topic right away: “You gonna take a shower, now?”

“No,” Fei Long retorted, got up and searched for his clothes which had been spread throughout the whole room last night. “I’m not meeting my lawyer in a club-outfit. I’ll go back to Baishe and shower there.”

Even the quickest look, while he pulled his underwear and the tight leather-pants back on, made obvious that the Russian was in a sullen mood suddenly, but Fei Long could not care about that now. Mikhail pouted, moving his lips left and right, staring at the ceiling. Only when the other was ready to leave and was putting on his coat already, did he sit back up.

“Uh, hey…”, he started and frowned at the Chinese, until Fei Long stopped moving to indicate that he was listening.

“That plan of yours: Meeting with Elisov. You think that’s gonna work?”

Fei Long shrugged slowly.

“It is worth a try. I’m not really sure about this, but I believe he had been doing business with my father a long time ago. That is usually a sign, that one is not completely irrational. As long as there is no personal feud contributing to this, we might be able to revert all of this to a former status quo. After all, this is the work of that guy who had worked for Asami, who trapped you all in this chaos. Maybe there needs to be a bit of compensation, but we will find out.”

The whole idea was still a big ‘ _what if_ ’, he was aware of that. Yet he still believed it was the first step they should try to take. If everything he had heard about Viktor Elisov was true, then besides from supplying his own army to help his endeavors and frightening the opposition into submission without them even knowing that it was his doing, then he was at the same time a formidable businessman, a gentleman and intellectual. That would make him the kind of person with whom you could reason.

Had Mikhail found any legally admissible evidence to connect Elisov to Chernobog, then taking _that_ path might have been the easiest yet. But if proofing him to be the man behind that terrorist-group had been that simple, then Elisov would long since have been gotten rid of. He _had_ enemies, and he certainly didn’t need anybody like the Arbatov bratva or Baishe challenging his little private army.

“Do you know him?”, Fei Long asked, when he buttoned the black wool coat.

Mikhail shrugged. “If you are _somebody_ in Russia, you meet other people who are _somebody_ in Russia. Do I get a kiss?”

Fei Long had been pulling his hair out of the collar of the coat but stopped for a moment, looking at the blonde man on the bed. He wasn’t even quite sure why, and disregarded it as a hunch that hadn’t even evolved into a discernable thought. Then he walked over to the bed, but only kissed the forehead of the man, who tried to catch his lips with his own.

“You’re not gonna let me wait another three weeks now?”, Mikhail asked, when he headed towards the exit again.

“We’ll see. Be good.”

“I’ll be here! Call me!”, was the last he heard, when he closed the door behind him.

Two hours later an onyx-black Lexus limousine stopped in front of one of the oldest colonial buildings of old Hong Kong, which housed the long-established law-firm of ‘ _Able, Caron, Redding & Associates LLP_’. The driver opened the rear-door and Fei Long got out, when Edward Redding already walked down the steps of the large mansion towards him.

“Good morning, Mr. Liu”, Redding greeted. He was a man in his fifties, small and of slender built with black, thin hair but lively dark eyes.

First, he bowed to his client, but then shook his hand as they always did, before he accompanied the young man, who was about a head taller, into the building.

Being the man he was and having one of the law-firm’s owners with him had the pleasant connotation of not being searched by the security personnel. Instead, they walk through a guarded entrance with three serial doors, which opened and closed each for itself and only when the others were shut – and no one asked him about the black leather satchel he carried with him or dared to look for the gun he carried in a holster at the back of his trouser’s waistband.

With just the slightest version of idle small-talk Redding led him into a lift, which was guarded by another security door. He used a little golden key and a 6-digit number to override the control and the elevator started to head downwards. Right away the numbers in the vehicle’s display disappeared, not giving any indication how many floors they descended, but the arrival chime sang just as charming as always. Down here it was a bit chilly and so Fei Long was not even asked if he wanted to take off his coat. He guessed that no one ever wanted to. Down a long corridor and passing many steel-doors with keyholes and keypads Redding guided him to the entrance with the number 17. It took a key Fei Long had brought along and another 6-digit key from the Lawyer to unlatch the lock. With a low hum the steel door opened and the air of the corridor and the room flowed into each other running a chill down Fei Long’s spine.

They entered a small cell which was built of concrete and steel and nothing else. A metal ladder stood ready to one side, a metal-table was built into the wall to the right, the metal-chair in front fixed to the ground. Light streamed down from bright, white LEDs in the ceiling. Next to the door there was an intercom and a small panel giving information about the room – its temperature and humidity, and dates when the door had been opened before. The last visitor had been here on January 2nd. That was the official date when each of the chambers was opened once a year to make sure everything was in order.

But the last time Fei Long had been in here had been more than three years ago, and it still didn’t feel any different to him. The sixteen rectangular doors set in groups of four, row above row, into the back wall still reminded him of the refrigerators of a morgue. And they were very much exactly _that_. Behind the hatches in giant drawers were files, some of them decades old and the people they concerned long dead, others dating back only three or four years and Fei Long had placed them here himself. But that weren’t many.

Most papers in those steel-coffins had been brought here by his father, who had kept detailed notes about all his business-transactions and partners, about each and any miniscule payment and check he had ever signed. There were printed out databases spanning many dozens of meters, photos, telephone numbers, information on license plates and family members and fellow students, bank statements, and diaries full of details about agreements and deals and the dark little secrets of the triad world.

When the death of his father had destroyed Baishe, when Fei Long had been in prison witnessing the organization’s downfall at the hands of the triad’s number three from afar, the contents of _this room_ however could not be taken away from him. They we’re his heritage. His and Yan-Tsui’s. Some of the treasures that could be found in the thousands of thousands of pieces of paper in this room had helped him rebuilt Baishe anew and made it – _him_ – more powerful than ever before.

One only needed to know where to look. Little steel plates indicated the age of the files behind each hatch, and after Redding had left him and had closed the door, Fei Long took the ladder and opened the small, heavy door leading him 20 to 25 years into the past.


	6. Aaron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (For @Akhimy =D)

Hissing a Russian curse, he pushed a new magazine into the Walther PPQ Tactical. It took too fucking long! Just switching for a new, already full magazine took too long. Having to equip it with new bullets quickly was utterly impossible. But at least his aiming was still well enough, even if it hurt like shit.

The bulletproof-vest and the accuracy of his men had saved his life, when he had barked at them to shoot that bastard Asami dead even if _he_ was in the way. One bullet hat grazed his shoulder, one his side. Both had hardly harmed him. But another two had ripped into his right arm, slashing through muscle, nerve and bone and tearing open an artery. He had survived the blood-loss by an inch and for some days the doctor his men had kidnapped from his home had been sure that he would have to take off the arm.

The man had paid that pessimism with his life, yet _Aaron_ was still here, his arm included, raising the gun once more towards the wooden figure he imagined had the face of Asami Ryuichi. Holding the weapon and moving his trigger-finger wasn’t a problem. But the recoil hurt like hell and his movements were just too slow. It was like his nerves didn’t want to relay the commands fast enough through the length of his arm.

And still, after all, he guesses he should feel lucky. Lucky that he had made it alive out of that piece-of-shit warehouse, where twenty-two of their men had been buried together with a ton of equipment. Lucky that he had been kept alive by that bastard doctor, that he had been cart the more than 300 miles of road along the Chinese coastline in the back of a cattle truck and had been shipped over to Hainan Island in a fishing smack. All in the name of not drawing attention to the less than 40 men that were left of Chernobog now.

Elisov had accommodated them on the grounds and in the dilapidated buildings of a long-closed orange plantation he had bought to tear it all down and built a golf course, and it still reeked of the repugnant sweet smell of rotten citrus fruits. That stench invaded everything. Aaron could taste it on his tongue, could feel it in his breath and knew that it would haunt him even when they had left this place.

But when would that be?

They had been here for weeks and Elisov had provided them with everything they needed, just not with anything to do. Not with a purpose, and the longer he waited, the more his arm heeled and the deeper the anger and questions sank into his mind, the more restless Aaron became.

With stiff fingers he filled his magazines with new bullets, loaded one of them into the gun, then holstered it and left the giant, dirty hall they had started to use to do training. Outside the sun burned down on him and made the bandage that was still wound tightly around his right upper and lower arm sting.

Honestly, he would have loved to come to a place like this on his own. He wanted to travel to Hawaii or Bali or Thailand, get a motorcycle and drive wherever he wished to go – whenever he wished to go. But this place was a fucking prison filled with restless men with dark minds and too many questions, and the one great, looming uncertainty: What would become of them now.

Elisov had built them years ago. He had recruited them from small terror groups, from ex-Police and -Military, right out of prison cells and psychiatric ward. He had brought them nice little gifts stolen from army camps around the world or out of the evidence rooms and storage halls of the FSB. Except for a small number of them no one had even known who that man actually was. Until today most didn’t know his name or his face. Not that they cared! They had been happy as long as he had allowed them to do what they were best at and enjoyed the most: spreading chaos and fear. And he had even given them the best equipment to extend their fun.

All he had ever wanted in return was that they unleashed their entertainment upon targets selected by him. He had let them know who was to die, sometimes even how that one was to die, but that had been rare. A few times they had to dispose of the victim silently, which didn’t mean that they couldn’t have their fun with it, but most times they had been welcomed to fulfill their task with a BANG!

Marching over the dry grounds of the old plantation some of his men nodded towards Aaron. Most of them were crouching somewhere in the shadows and one was taking a garden hose to shower with the cold water. It was the only running water they had, but at least it was pretty clean.

He entered a small cellar that once had very likely been used to produce Moonshine from bitter oranges that had been harvested here as well, but now stored the cargo they had been able to retrieve from the Macau warehouse. Weapons, warheads, grenades, ammunition, explosives, armor. It was a real feast for the eyes, only that now Aaron didn’t manage to feel really satisfied with it.

It had cost them too much already, and he wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t take even more.

The whole bargain with Sudou had been a freaking pile of shit. They should have known better than to deal with pretty-talking amateurs. Yuri should have known better! But fuck! It had been a fucking good deal and it would have worked out if somewhere along the route someone hadn’t had a big mouth.

If only he knew who!

Picking up one of the black grenades he cradled it in his hand as if it was as precious as a Farbergé egg – and not only as easily broken with a far worse aftermath.

He wouldn’t put it past Sudou that in the end it had all been him. After all he had played Asami Ryuichi pretty well, having him show up there at the right time, at the right place. A bit too well prepared for Aaron’s taste maybe, but with that he could have coped.

It was the fucking other surprises that he wasn’t happy with. Those that had been disrupted the transaction from the start: the sudden attention of the Tokyo Police, then the bratva getting their hands on the goods, before they were stolen right back by Asami. It was a fucking freak show!

And in that warehouse: how had Mikhail Arbatov found that place so fast and why did that Chinese cunt know where to call his artillery?

In the dim like the black grenade just gleamed like that wet, jet-black hair. Next time he saw that cunt, he’d let him suck on one of those little black eggs.

But for now, he put the grenade back and closed the lid of the box which held dozens more.

The contents of this storage room would likely not go to waste, but what would become of the _men_ around? What would become of Chernobog?

Elisov kept them dangling in midair and Aaron was sick of waiting.

He was sick of being somebody’s private army. _That_ was due to Yuri. Oh! He had brought them dreams! Why wait until their faraway boss send them a new name to liquidate or a new transaction to fulfill, when they could be their own masters? In silence and Elisov’s ignorance they had dared a few steps across the sidelines. They had done business for their own good, had put aside equipment and money, had flourished and formed into more than that little riot-group he had wanted them to be. They had become a family of prophets of war and they still could have been so much more. Soon enough there would not have been any need for any Victor Elisov anymore, for his money, his intel, his connections and protection. Sure, Yuri had promised their boss to bring him the Arbatov bratva for _his_ benefits, but that had only been a pretense for Elisov to take the bait and let Yuri handle Chernobog. In truth, they would have split from him, once they had made sure of Mikhail Arbatov, and after that they would have worked only for themselves and for the ones who paid the most.

It had been a good dream. One worth putting a real effort into, and that had been new for most of them. But now that dream seemed to have been buried in the rubble of some old, abandoned warehouse and there was no telling, if Elisov wasn’t at this precise moment deciding that he didn’t need them anymore and that it was saver to get rid of them.

 _That_ however, the old man would find, was based on reciprocity.

They were waiting, but they weren’t off guard. They would listen and watch, and they would bite the hand that fed them long before it turned to smack them.


	7. Asami

The prospect of his ‘martyrdom’ on that private, tropical island ending in a couple of days, had softened Akihito’s mood by quite a bit. And that even though Asami kept insisting that this time frame wasn’t a promise. It was just a glimmer of hope. One that now relied mostly on the reaction of Viktor Elisov.

Of course, Asami would not kneel down to him, would not make any concessions hurting his ego or reputation. It had all been good business to a certain degree and had just been messed up, once Sudou had dared to stick his hands into it. Therefore, if Elisov was searching for a scapegoat, Asami would point his finger at that girly cunt – no matter if he was still alive or not. But he would not accept the blame for what hadn’t been his doing, just to end this quarrel.

Yet, it still was the fastest way: talking to the man, trying to find a way to see eye to eye and letting bygones be bygones. That much he was willing to give and with a bit of luck and everyone behaving like professionals this indeed could be over in a few days.

And if it didn’t work out, he could as well just pass it off as another of those second-rate plans Fei Long seemed eager to come up with.

He took another draw from the cigarette, releasing his steamy breath into the night air.

Since that “no-promise” of about 10 days Akihito had answered all his calls and video-chats right away and had played along with everything Asami had wanted to see from him. He had indeed been a good boy that needed to be rewarded, and - twitching beneath the bathrobe, which was all he was wearing right now - he admitted that _he_ himself was in desperate need of handing out that reward.

Feeling quite tired after a long day of setting up and sending out most of his men towards the island of Hainan and of trying to revive some of the business-endeavors the flight from Chernobog had caused him to halt, Asami had laid down on one of the cozy lounge chairs on the balcony of his room. He watched the stars overhead, imagining that Akihito might be doing the same a thousand miles away.

Well, if he did, he certainly would be able to see them clearer. Though this house was nestled into the forests below Victoria Peek the light pollution of Hong Kong made the sky overhead appear nearly grey and empty. Only the brightest stars managed to penetrate through. Procyon, Sirius, Betelgeuse and Capella shone through the dim mist, outmatched only by the far closer Mars high in the sky above them.

From the neighboring planet the reflection of Sol’s light took less than 3 minutes to reach earth. From those other suns however… up to several hundred years. What could be seen of them here, right now, was nothing but their history, and perhaps it was fitting, as Asami had found his mind turning to memories since days.

There was so much still to plan, still to prepare and think through, but whenever he found a moment’s rest, he caught himself letting pictures of the past seep into his mind.

Maybe it was this place, he thought – but that was likely just an attempt to play down the nagging feeling about forgetting something. Of having overlooked something important.

When he had come to this house, for a moment, he had thought it was the same guesthouse in which he had stayed with its owner seven years back. That house in which he had shot Toh and in which Fei Long had almost bled to death in his arms. But it wasn’t.

Fei Long had gifted that house to an orphanage, he had remembered.

And the tug on his mind to turn backwards didn’t stop back than anyway. Allowing himself to be lured, he once more followed further, further into his past, back into his childhood, leaving him again in the halls of that brand new Casino, full of people in Smoking and dresses, sipping on champagne and feasting on Caviar.

Three or four times his father had dragged him to events like that, no matter how much little Ryuichi felt out of place and bored there. It was a play at normality which that society in which his father dwelled liked to put up now and then - just like Marie Antoinette had played shepherdess in a copy of what she had believed to be a poor farmer’s home. They would bring their wives and children, leaving their mistresses out of the picture for once; would play husband and father, would talk about holidays and cars and the school’s their kids attended. Nowadays to Asami it looked like those team-building events some companies did for their employees: as if the heads controlling the Asian world – the one in the light and the one in the darkness alike – decided that sometimes they had to get back together pretending to be decent human beings, who would neither destroy the livelihood of thousands of people with just one signature for a tiny bit of profit, nor would kill some drug dealer and all his family and friends because one person had screwed up a job.

Taking another long drag from his cigarette he could imagine himself back then. He had always been tall for his age and people had usually assumed him to be bit older, but actually he had been only 13 that New Years day. Very likely he had worn some dark blue or dark grey suit to match the Smoking his father was draped in, with a fly around his neck that itched and seemed to throttle him.

The reason why he had recognized the giant ice figure of the Casino right away on that pictured with Elisov was that he had been staring at it for a very long time. It was the only interesting bit of the whole evening, safe for the fireworks at midnight. Whoever had recreated the building with all its windows and doors and shapes and decorations out of something as fragile and ephemeral as ice in his opinion had to be a master of craftsmanship. And still that person would have been given his meager wage and maybe a small tip and then was sent home so that the billionaires and millionaires could glance at his art for a second and then maybe break off a piece to put into their drinks.

Little Ryuichi however had stared at the slowly melting palace for most of the evening, marveling especially at how the light was broken inside the ice down to all its colors, how rainbows meandered like veins through the glacier and droplets shimmered like liquid diamonds on the surface.

Sometimes someone had stopped to talk to him, a few of them ruffling his hear like he was a five-year-old. They all seemed to know who he was, but he just kept politely faking a smile and answered their small talk with triviality. Nothing but that was expected of him.

With a low growl Asami put the cigarette in the ashtray. It had just been one stupid party of several and still it kept occupying his mind, like his subconscious wanted to point something out to him but did a very bad job at actually succeeding.

It had been 22 years ago and yes, Viktor Elisov had been there. So yes, Asami had probably met him back then. Yes, Elisov had known his father. But none of that was in any way important, was it?

He looked up at the night sky again, trying to remember how back then in Macau it had looked, but hell, how was he supposed to remember anything as meaningless as that? Due to the light pollution even back then it had been very likely just as dull and grey as Hong Kong’s sky was now, and only the fireworks had made it light up with stars – artificial ones, however.

Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine himself on the giant terrace of the Casino, waiting for the arrival of midnight. He had wrapped his arms tightly around himself even though there were so many people there, because the night was rather chilly for the latitude of Macau. Keeping his eyes up to the sky he had shut his ears to the monotonous chatter of drunken hedonists all around and had only realized that someone was talking to him, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Turning his head in his memory and looking up he found the face of Toh. Yes, he had been there. That was no big surprise. Him and his father had known each other for a while and Toh having met Asami for the first time when he was still a little kid had made the man always call him by first name – even when Asami had thought that it was becoming inappropriate due to their business relations.

So probably Toh had known Viktor Elisov. Or at least had met him. If you were very successful in your business, you usually were well connected. That went hand in hand, Asami knew. Eventually even that bored and annoyed kid from back then had learned this and had in his later years become a true master of socializing and networking.

But what did that encounter matter now? He frowned up to the Hong Kong night above him as the 13-year-old did up to the face of Toh. The man asked some questions, attempted some chitchat, but as the kid back then had been severely disinterested not a single word had survived in that memory. Instead, he remembered Toh suddenly looking away, stopping to talk as if young Ryuichi had unexpectedly vanished into thin air. He was now looking at a kid that had been trying to push its ways through the crowd to the front of the balcony. It was a boy - maybe a year older than Asami back than - clothed in a midnight-blue velvet tang jacket, with neatly combed and parted hair and a faint, small mole beneath one of his eyes.

Toh leaned in to ask the boy something and little Ryuichi followed the motion, turning his head, hearing the question.

“Where is your father?”

The kid answered, but those words did not ring through to him from the past. In his memory he now, however, turned his gaze further and finally spotted the younger sibling clinging to the arm of his older brother. A little boy with shiny, silky, jet-black hair.

And Asami sat up straight, growling: “Fuck!”


	8. Viktor

There was a commotion down at the pool. Apparently, a war had started on who would ride the inflatable unicorn. Viktor didn’t do as much as look up from the tablet pc he was reading on. Through the wide spaces between the granite baluster-fence he could see the children down there, without even getting up from his chair on the terrace above the water, but he didn’t feel the urge to move. He had learned that there were certain things that you could luckily leave to get sorted by themselves. And indeed, less than two minutes later his son Rico had lost the battle against the combined forces of his two younger half-sisters and marched away from the pool with swinging fists and pouted lips.

It made Viktor smile and resume his reading. If only every war was as easily finished as that. But no matter how hard he pretended to be of a pleasant mood and though he honestly tried to not think about business whenever he had a few days with his children, it was not easy in these days.

He had quite a train wreck to dispose of, and all the noise and attention it had caused had made it pretty hard to keep his own hands stainless. Of course, he had the right connections, knew which favors to pull, which debts to call in to get rid of any evidence that would even just vaguely point into his direction. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the land slide that had been triggered by one little pebble marching to the beat of a different drummer, and the paramount question whether he could, wanted to or shouldn’t just roll with it and tumble himself headfirst into a war that would not be won by someone walking away with swinging fists. This would be a war with all in, and everything to lose – and therefore everything to win.

After the disappointment of having the prospect of controlling the Arbatov bratva ripped away from him, the profit promised by _this_ new opportunity would be inconceivably much greater. Oh, it was tempting! But it also was risky and bold and would force him to build up Chernobog to more power than they ever had had before… and he just wasn’t sure he wanted to trust them anymore.

He realized that he had once more only stared at the text on the tablet, when a shadow fell over him. It was Leonid, for many years one of his private servants.

“Sir,” he spoke quietly in Russian. “There is a visitor for you.”

Viktor scratched the beard he had allowed to grow back because his children loved it.

“I am not expecting anybody.” He knew that Leonid would not bother him with something trifling like some stranger coming to the wrong door, and therefore already wondered.

“No, Sir. I would not have allowed myself to disturb you if it didn’t appear to be important.” Then he leaned down, whispering a name, and Viktor couldn’t help but smile. He looked up at his servant, pushing the sunglasses up unto his forehead, knowing that incredulity and astonishment were making his face wrinkly just as much as the bright day.

“Well, show him in, please”, he ordered, and Leonid hurried away.

In the meantime, Viktor turned up the backrest of his chair and put away the tablet. He was wearing a white polo-shirt and light blue shorts which were probably rather inappropriate for receiving visitors, but then again, he was at his home and at leisure, and there had not been any appointment.

Some minutes later, in which he had closely monitored the large doors leading from the mansion’s main hall into the garden – as well as the balconies above where one of his guests was accommodated – Leonid walked out of the shadows again, accompanied by a slender, tall figure.

For a while from afar Viktor was led to believe it was a woman, but he knew that this simply validated the identity of his unexpected guest. Fei Long Liu wore a white linen-shirt and dark blue trousers fitting the 27°C of the noon, and had his trademark long black hair tied at the back of his head. On a short wrist-strap he carried a slim leather satchel with him – far too small for a gun or other unpleasantries and far better suited for maybe a passport, or those souvenir-postcards.

While he approached, Viktor watched him, but then got up, extending his hand to greet the other. The Chinese’s handshake was rather firm for a man who seemed so fragile at first glance. But Viktor had learned to never judge anybody by first looks or superficial appearances, and was sure that the linen shirt stretched around the young man’s chest and upper arms for a reason.

“Please forgive my intrusion. May I have a moment of your time?”, Fei Long asked and Viktor smiled at him as warmly as he knew he could.

“But of course, please! Sit with me. Can Leonid get you something to drink? We are very well equipped.”

The servant bowed happily to his guest but Fei Long declined. “Thank you, I am not thirsty. And I am not planning to occupy you long.”

“That will be all then for now, Leonid”, Viktor declared, sitting down after the young man.

While the servant left, there was another short commotion down at the pool that drew both their attention, but it was nothing more than some water splashing and happy screeching.

“Your children?”, Fei Long asked, watching them a moment longer, before looking back at Viktor.

A giant umbrella gave them shade – luckily for the ivory skin of the Chinese, Viktor thought.

“Yes”, he answered honestly. “I have not much time to spare for them, but whenever I can, I come to see them. A child should never be abandoned by a parent, no matter how hard the situation. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Fei Long didn’t consider his reply for a moment: “I do.”

“I knew your father. He was a fine man.”

“Thank you.”

Tilting his head to one side, Viktor took a moment’s time to study the other’s face. It was very pretty. No one with a sane mind would ever be able to call it anything less than that, no matter what directions one’s own taste took. In plain terms of physical attractiveness and basic conventions on beauty, Fei Long was _very_ pretty. More than that, indeed. But that didn’t interest Viktor. He looked for something else.

“… shouldn’t you ask me, which of both I’m referring to?”, he finally added, still watching the other, searching for a reaction, for a change in his expression. There was none.

“Liu was the only family I ever knew. He was the only father I ever had.”

“Ah, well”, Viktor retorted with a small chuckle. “The answer would have been _‘both of them’_ , anyway. Therefore, I can tell you that there is not much you could have missed about having Toh in your life. It fits his character that he would just dispose of a newborn child like it was some kind of trash or tarnish.”

He could also tell the young man that he had his natural father’s eyes if Viktor recollected correctly, but he didn’t.

“Are you trying to antagonize me?”, Fei Long asked quietly, still no irritation nor indignation nor anything else showing on his face or audible in his voice. “Because it is not working. I have no feelings whatsoever about Toh. He is nonexistent for me. The fact that he was my biological father bears as little impact onto my personal sentiment as would knowing the outside temperature at the minute I was born.”

He drew a breath for a moment and Viktor granted him a surrendering smile.

“I have come to talk to you about some occurrences in Macau four weeks ago, and in Hong Kong before that.”

 _‘Nicely phrased’_ , Viktor thought. These words were so vague, there was no blame in them. Indeed, not even an allusion that the Russian had to know what the other was talking about. He could just answer evasively, pretend not to have any idea what the other was referring to. It would have been interesting to see how Fei Long would handle that, but Viktor did not feel like beating about the bush.

“A collateral misbehaving, wasn’t it? Seems like some men loosely working for me now and then overstepped their boundaries by quite a bit.”

Now Fei Long tilted his head slightly to one side. He seemed to think for a moment, blinking slowly, then spoke again, factually and not unfriendly: “I have not come to talk to you about how you go about your businesses. Nor have I come to talk about Chernogbog.”

“Mh”, Viktor heard himself. It was half a chuckle, half the opposite. He wasn’t happy with hearing that name.

“ _Neither_ of them are my concern nor interest”, Fei Long continued. “You have been keeping out of my affairs and territory until this intermezzo, and I will hope you will return to do so. What I am here for is to discuss with you about Mikhail Arbatov and Asami Ryuichi.”

Leaning forward on his chair, Viktor places his elbows on the table and folded his hands. With one finger he scratched along his whiskered chin, back and forth, while he talked: “Ah, yes. I have heard about you three men coming to some sort of understanding. That might put me at a disadvantage in terms of business. Wouldn’t it?”

“We are not working together. We just share a common interest in ending this feud.”

Viktor nodded slowly. He had to deliberate for a moment, but then thought he might just speak the truth. This was – after all – just some friendly chat, and if Viktor felt annoyed, the Chinese would never leave his garden alive.

“Well then”, he finally spoke, looking up again. “Mikhail Arbatov is in general not an issue for me. I have been doing business with him for years, admittedly in a time when he might not have been aware of my … connections to Chernobog. The apple of discord was thrown in by his uncle. He was a capable man, military trained, and very effective in most of his endeavors. Also, he provided a wide range of insight and intel which I could use for my own benefit. And I must admit that the idea of gaining control of the Arbatov bratva through the man was rather tempting.”

He cleared his throat for a moment.

“That possibility has now regretfully dissolved. While just another Arbatov seizing control of the organization might have proofed feasible without it breaking apart, just replacing the man by anybody else – even by me – would just rip the bratva to shreds. And that I must admit is not in my interest. In a certain way it would weaken Russia and would disrupt that well-ordered chaos which the Russian Underworld is right now. On the long run this would not be to my benefit. Good opposition is often more helpful than tame submissives.

Then again, of course, Mikhail has caused me some grievances, not only killing one of my best men – and many others, presumably – but he has also taken to interfere with Chernobog’s businesses greatly in the last months and he was the last drop that spoiled the whole Japan situation. So, there must of cause be some compensation towards me, if I shall be tempted not to seek retribution from him.”

Fei Long looked away for a moment now, regarding the beautiful mansion which was inspired by a small palace in Nice. When he looked back finally his eyes seemed a bit more earnest than before. That however was all the reaction Viktor had as of yet seen from him. With such a pretty visage he probably needed to have a very good poker-face to not appear weak.

“Wouldn’t you say that Mr. Arbatov’s activity against Chernobog was rather a _re_ -action? Their growing activity in his territory was bound to lead to strife and measures of repression. Their operations started to hurt his businesses, causing him some losses and threatening his position. To me as a neutral observer, this seems to have been a quit-pro-quo which started from your side or at least from Chernobog’s. One led to the other, piling up to the fiasco which soils both your and Mr. Arbatov’s hands now.”

Viktor started to smile broadly, and he meant it. Somehow, he felt generous.

“If you put it like that… Touché!” He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, the goods he stole have mostly been retrieved. The damage is almost neglectable, I guess. Fine. I’ll let it slip as an acknowledgement of own wrongdoings and as a signal of good business conduct. Congratulations to that, Mr. Liu, you have swayed an allegedly stony-hearted man. But I must admit this is just some small concession, because the real trial for your persuasiveness is yet to come. Ryuichi Asami, I will have you know before we even start discussing _him_ , is indeed an altogether different story.”

Beholding the mansion himself for a moment, Viktor spotted the moving doors up on one of the balconies, but ignored it, even when they reflected some light into his eyes. With a little sigh he finally sat up straight again and started to explain:

“You see, Mr. Asami has had business with me directly. And he had been doing business with Chernobog for quite some years now.”

That information he was happy to realize, was news to Fei Long. The young man flinched ever so slightly, but Viktor was watching him too intently not to notice.

“However, at some point some months back, he decided he would not like to do business with Chernobog anymore. I guess he might have found that they were becoming too powerful, to active in his own domain, but that is only guesswork. So, he ceased his dealings with them… just that then they were taken up again via one of his subordinates. That Mr. Asami wasn’t aware of this, that we didn’t know at first. However, when Mr. Asami _did_ find out, he tried to stop it, and that caused us some trouble – into which Mr. Arbatov just added the last straw that finally broke the camel’s back. This subordinate, a certain Mr. Sudou as you might know, is an individuum with his very own goals and intentions, which I until today feel incapable to discern completely. He is a troubled guy, that one. But the intel he provided – into Mr. Asami’s businesses at that time – proved very lucrative and worthwhile.”

Raising his hands like he wanted to demonstrate his innocence, Viktor shrugged again.

“All in all, the interference by Mr. Asami might have caused me some major grievances in the long run, for which I feel compelled to be … how do I put it? … _Butthurt_.”

He chuckled quietly, then excused himself, because the other seemed not fond of the joke.

Clearing his throat, he once more continued: “His doings also antagonized Chernobog. Trying to play with them was never going work out. And it didn’t. So, you will understand, Mr. Liu, that tensions with Mr. Asami run much deeper. The strife there has started from his own change of mind in the first place and has – as you put it – quid-pro-quo come to the clusterfuck it is today. In that issue I will have to ask for retribution, as will Chernobog. And I say all of this with straining my optimism. Because I am not sure if there can be reached any kind of gratification in this case anymore.”

“Furthermore”, he added, “there is the issue of some promises I might have made. You know that Mr. Sudou, he has, as I said, his very own intentions and stake in this business. His issues with his former boss are not – as I understand it – of a business matter but of a private one, and he will not settle with monetary reparations, I believe. What he requires from Mr. Asami I fear is not compensation, but atonement. A major concession really, if not to say a heart opening up and letting him in.”

He made his eyes gleam lasciviously at that last sentence and gained a frown from the Chinese.

“So,” he concluded, clapping his hands together, “even if I felt compelled to burying the hatched – and I do not imply that I _might_ – my price for that is very high, but I am sure it could be matched. I am just not sure if Mr. Asami will want to pay the price, he’d need to, to make Mr. Sudou back away from his demands. Demands which I feel I will have to honor due to our business agreement.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Viktor saw a movement in front of the mansion, that he had expected to occur any second already. It had just been the right balcony doors moving!

Taking a deep breath, he smiled at his guest, then got up raising one hand towards the building from where to figures were quickly approaching.

“I fear you will not be able to avoid meeting that young man now.”

Fei Long blinked up at him, blinded by the sunlight. But only when those two men had approached to less than twenty steps, did he finally get up.

Viktor spread both his arms, moving in between his long-term-guests and the unexpected one.

“What is he doing here?”, the light-haired young man bellowed, though his voice was rather shaky. His skin was nearly as white as his shirt, as his long cotton pants and as the bandage still clinging tightly around his head. Only on his cheeks and in his bloodshot eyes there was some color.

One hand darted up in the air, one finger pointing at Fei Long, but the effort of the run and the change of balance took his toll on Sudou. He started to sway, then to stumble, and was caught by the taller man who had finally caught up.

“What are you doing?”, Sakazaki asked wearily, nodding towards Viktor in an apologetic manner. When he wanted to extend the curtesy towards his guest however, the man froze before starting to smile very smugly.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”, Sudou panted again, trembling in the grip of the other.

“This is, just like you, a guest of mine, my dear Mr. Sudou. I would ask you to mind your manners.”

Turning back towards Fei Long, he added: “I wasn’t aware that you knew each other?”

“I don’t”, the Chinese stated, regarding the two men with not the tiniest bit of interest showing on his face. In any case that outburst of hostility or fear or whatever was driving the young Japanese seemed not to have impressed him the slightest. Well, he might be used to more scary looking opponents than Shu Sudou was, but in terms of madness and determination that boy certainly was a superlative, which even the dragon of Baishe might not have had the displeasure of meeting yet.

“Ah”, Viktor retorted. He raised a hand once again to indicate the respective person he would introduce. “This is Shu Sudou, who until recently worked for Mr. Ryuichi Asami. The other gentleman is Kenta Sakazaki, club owner, business partner, and friend of Mr. Sudou. And this, is Mr. Fei Long Liu.”

Hot breathing flared out of Sudou’s nose, while he clung unto the other man now, weakened by his injuries, the headaches and the painkillers still. He had been on the brim of death for weeks and had hardly started to recover. Slowly and obviously in ultimate reluctance to appear so weak, he fought himself out of the need of being supported. Sakazaki however still ogled the Chinese, his eyes short from popping out.

“Mr. Sakazaki, please”, Viktor called him to his senses. “Mr. Liu has one stalker already. I am sure he has no interest in another.”

At that Fei Long’s shot at him. “I am sorry?”, he asked. His tune not quite as cold and disinterested anymore.

“Oh, I have been told Mikhail Arbatov is quite smitten with you? Regarding that I can understand why you chose to stand up for him. He seems to be willing to sacrifice quite a lot for you. It would seem wise to try to keep him.”

To these words now, there was no reaction in the other’s eyes. If Viktor had indeed brushed against any emotion inside him than Fei Long had learned to close them off entirely inside himself.

“A pleasure making your acquaintance”, Sakazaki interrupted the other two men. Letting go of Sudou, he marched forward a few steps, then stuck his hand out towards the Chinese – a gesture rather unusually for both their native cultures.

Fei Long shook the man’s hand nonetheless, the beam on the Japanese’s face only intensifying.

“What brings you here? At this beautiful day, to this beautiful place? And wouldn’t you like to have a drink with us? They mix pretty well here.”

Blinking heavily above his glasses towards the other his visage transformed into a seductive smile, but Fei Long only detached himself from his grip.

“Thank you. I have no time for that.”

“What is he doing here?”, Sudou hissed once more. “He is his enemy! What did he come here for? What is he planning with you?”

Viktor just blinked slowly at his injured guest, who was just proving the facts he had been pointing out before. Fei Long however just regarded the other coldly. He was slightly taller than the Japanese and though Sudou had had a successful modeling career some years back, the Chinese was more beautiful. Then again, the comparison was a bit off in this moment, Viktor admitted, as Sudou was a nervous, furious wreck, hissing and wheezing with bloodshot eyes and hectic spots showing all over his skin.

“I think it is time for you to take Mr. Sudou back inside”, Viktor advised calmly to the other Japanese, who was clever enough to get the gist right away.

“Have a lovely day”, Sakazaki trilled, pulling the smaller guy with him, who tried to free himself from the grip with little success.

“No! Stop!”, Sudou yelled. “What are you planning? Let go!”

His curses followed him into the building and only stopped when they couldn’t be heard anymore.

“Somehow that didn’t feel like a coincidence”, Fei Long remarked when they were alone again, looking at the Russian from the corner of his eye in a suspicious manner.

“Oh, it was. I have no remote control to make them come down here. But I admit, I had expected them to show up, once they spotted you. I guess you didn’t know they were here?”

Fei Long shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know they had survived. Not that I care. I do not know them.”

“Then how did Mr. Sudou recognize you.”

At this the Chinese indeed showed a little smile. “I am a very successful businessman. You cannot avoid some pictures hitting the internet.”

“Ah! Right,” Viktor admitted. That, or Ryuichi Asami had a framed photograph of the man Sudou called his ‘ _nemesis’_ in his desk.

“But now you might have gotten a little idea of what Mr. Asami is dealing with.”

“He seems rather unpleasant”, the Chinese admitted coolly. He turned his head towards the pool, looking down upon the children playing there. Five, Viktor had. Three were here today and were now once more united in idle harmony. The view was lovely with the lush greenery around, the slight breeze coming up from the sea, the sunshine glistening in the light blue water of the swimming pool, and still Viktor suddenly felt a chill.

Something had darkened in the eyes of the young man and now he seemed to radiate iciness.

“There is something, I need you to see”, Fei Long said quietly, still watching the children. He opened the little satchel still dangling from his left wrist on a short leather cord and produced a white envelope. Looking down upon it, he seemed to deliberate for a moment, then he handed it over.

Viktor took it with a strange feeling. It was pretty light, but somehow, he had expected it to be heavier. As the envelope wasn’t sealed, he could open it easily, taking out the first thing he could put a finger onto: a polaroid photo. There were several in there.

It showed some pages of paper lying next to each other on a steel desk. The pages seemed to be a bit yellowed by age, but the print was still strong, though from the distance the picture had been taken from, it was impossible to decipher anything.

Viktor sat down again, putting the Polaroid onto the wooden table between him and his guest, then looked at the next, and the next, and the next.

Some of them showed collections of photos neatly placed next to each other on the metal surface, other had even more pages of paper on it. There were lists and database excerpts, copies of checks and bank transactions, and dozens of certificates and contracts with his signature. The last picture showed a page from a notebook filled with black tint in a neat and small handwrite. Those notes were 25 years old, Viktor new at once, for he knew the names of the men written there. Men who had been in the way. Men whose deaths had cost him money. And there were all the sums he had had to pay, with the days on which he had done so, giving the bank accounts he had used to do so…

Viktor put the last photograph away, leaning back in his chair. He looked down towards his children, still at play, still in the sunlight. But he bet that there was one cloud in the sky right now that was bathing _him_ alone in shadow. And that cloud probably had the shape of a dragon.

He folded his hands, taking a deep breath, and felt a pitiful smile settling on his features.

“I am not planning to harm you”, Fei Long said very quietly.

“But with that, I can destroy you.”

Viktor couldn’t help but nod slowly. It was the truth. He concentrated on his breath, which flowed in and out of his lungs evenly, which was a trick he had learned to quench his anger. But actually, he was not really angry. Disappointed maybe.

“Someone took quite an effort to keep tabs on my actions back then. And to keep those notes until today…?”

“You said, my father was a fine man. He was a smart man, also. And a cautious one.”

Again, Viktor nodded slowly. The old man Liu had been one of his first contacts when he had found Macau and the gambling business in general as a good starting point for his ambitions. Of course, not every deal he had done back than had been with the former head of Baishe, but one way or the other he had had his hands in nearly all the indecencies back then. When there was money laundered, or people trafficked, or drugs sold, or somebody blackmailed than somehow Baishe had always played a part in it – or at least had known of it and had allowed it.

The photographs contained Viktor’s life for about 5 to 6 years, his first steps into the criminal world from about 25 years back, the basis for his influence and power and prosperity. And in the wrong hands it could be used to find all the little evidence that would undo him, which his enemies had been searching for so eagerly. They had only been looking in the wrong places, had been searching in recent years where Viktor had managed to make any proof dissolve into thin air.

“So”, he breathed quietly. “What now?”

Fei Long paused a moment, then started to explain: “You will cease any hostility against Mr. Arbatov and Mr. Asami and their associates. You will withdraw Chernobog from our territories and keep them away from there. Mr. Arbatov will compensate you for the worth of the goods with which he interfered, even though they have been returned to you. I had offered him 100 Million Dollars worth in hardware if he got rid of Chernobog. He didn’t manage that. So, I will give that prize to you as a recompense for whatever grief Mr. Asami might have caused you.”

He paused another moment to look at the mansion. It was quiet there now and no balcony windows were moving.

“In terms of Mr. Sudou: if I understand correctly it was his doing that led to what happened at that warehouse. He sent an email to your men to meet him there and retrieve the stolen cargo, while he also sent an email to Mr. Asami. That way he forced that confrontation and nearly got himself killed in it. Out of a personal vendetta, he cost you dearly in men and equipment, and has very likely forced you to do some very thorough cleanup. Nevertheless, you saved his life. By that, and by giving him shelter and protection, I’d claim you have repaid him for whatever information he might have given you. Other men would have been less… accommodating. With them Mr. Sudou would have found himself dead in a gutter.”

Looking back at Viktor, he continued on, his voice quiet and factually. “If Mr. Sudou fears for his life or safety – from Mr. Asami or Mr. Arbatov - _I_ will offer him protection, until their issue has been cleared. Mr. … Sakazaki?”

Viktor nodded, confirming the name.

“Mr. Sakazaki as well. But Mr. Sudou’s issue with Mr. Asami is neither your concern nor mine. As you put it, his problem with Asami is not ‘ _a business matter but of a private one’_. And thus, it shall be treated. He will have to find a way to make peace with his former boss himself, and until he has – if necessary, until the end of his life – I can hide him away and protect him.”

Smiling slightly Viktor looked at the other.

“I remember you, when you were a kid. You were rather meek”, he snickered. “You sure have changed.”

He sighed, taking the Polaroids back and flipping them through a second time. “You know… the name Liu is written on these as well.”

Now Fei Long chuckled, what made Viktor look up in surprise. “Yes. My father’s signature is on some of those papers and contracts. But my father is seven years dead. _My_ name isn’t on there. And at the time those deeds were done, I was a little child… and rather meek.”

Pushing the photos back into the envelope, Viktor sighed deeply.

“Well played, Mr. Liu.”

“Thank you.”

“Tell me… what happened if I just shot you right now?”, the Russian added with a shrug, not even surprised by the lack of effect the thread had on the other.

“I will tell you what will happen with those papers. They will stay where they are. No one will ever know of them except for you and me, as long as you fulfill those conditions I just brought before you. I told you, that I am not planning to harm you, and that is the truth. But I can, and I will if you force me to. Now… concerning some lethal fate befalling me, there are two solutions to that. If there is no hair, my archives will be opened by my lawyer. He is a very smart and very keen man, and I have made sure that the more important files I own will not be overlooked. So, you should wish for him to not get a reason to browse through those files. Should I, _however_ , have an heir those archives will be bequeathed to that person, who would be able to do with them whatever he wanted. But I could of course leave a message, that I wish of those papers to not being used. In any case, I think me living on would be the best solution for you.”

“It seems so”, Victor agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Had to make up Sakazaki's first name. Sorry for that =D)


	9. Asami

It was half past one in the afternoon when he marched out of the elevator on the top floor of Baishe HQ. Guns were pointed at him immediately and withdrawn right away as the men gathered who he was. But he felt unwelcomed, nonetheless, by questions put to him and hands extended in an attempt to stop him. He didn’t care about any of that one slight bit. He had been trying to call Fei Long since the late evening before and each and any of his calls and messages had remained unanswered.

Striding down the main corridor he tried to throw open the door to the dragon’s office but found it locked, then marched on to the large gate of beautifully carved wood which was the entrance to Fei Long’s private quarters. By this time old Master Zhou had caught up with him, while a couple of other Baishe-men were close by. They looked quite eager to throw him out of the building.

“Mr. Asami, Sir, what are you doing?”, the old man inquired, his eyebrows drawn together to a concerned frown.

“Where is he? I need to talk to him.”

“Master Fei Long has no time for you right now. You should make an appointment”, the Chinese proclaimed. He had some fierce black buttons as eyes which did not shrug away from the Japanese’s angry glare.

“And I have no time for his games”, he answered, banging his fist onto the large doors.

“Please, Mr. Asami. I am sure Master Fei Long will find time for you as soon as possible, but…”

A key was turned in the lock on the other side and the door opened, so Asami shoved it open and entered, pushing the 13-year-old behind out of the way unintentionally. There was a short shriek, then a huff, when the kid saw who now marched down the hallway of the private loft.

“Hey!”, he screamed. “Stop!”

But Asami didn’t. He walked through the living room and study, followed now only by Zhou and the teenager.

“Where is he?”, he growled at the boy, then turned on his heal, heading for the bedroom. At that point Tao got into his way, positioning himself in the doorway and spreading his arms.

“Who do you think you are?”, the child bellowed up at him, his eyes burning with contempt. “You can’t just come in here!”

“Where is he? I need to speak with him”, Asami repeated his words, slowly and angry.

Since the last evening some nasty feeling had settled inside him that he didn’t know how to even describe to himself. As best as he could, he’d say that it felt like some sort of bad premonition, but he just couldn’t put his finger onto it. And the fact that Fei Long kept ignoring his attempts at contact just added to the sensation. In fact, it wasn’t that he had switched his phone off and that the calls got therefore rerouted to a mailbox, _no_. The phone was on, kept ringing and ringing and the messages were delivered. But either Fei Long had the device switched to staying idle and didn’t notice them, or he disregarded the disturbances deliberately – or he wasn’t able to answer his phone.

“That is none of your business!”, the child snapped back.

Asami grinned down at him maliciously, then just walked on, shoving the boy out of the way without even needing much force. Tao kicked after him, nonetheless.

But the bedroom was as deserted as the rest of the apartment.

“Where the fuck is he?”, Asami bellowed again, when Zhou hurried into the room. He was on the phone now, nodding heavily as if the person on the other end could see it.

“Is that him?”, the Japanese asked, but the old man shook his head to that, then handed over the phone.

“Who is this?”, Asami barked.

“This is Yoh. What is going on?”

Less than half an hour later the Chinese, who had once worked for Asami, entered the living room of the loft where his former master now sat on the very same couch in which he had once been drugged by Fei Long. He wouldn’t have taken another drink offered him here, but the boy, who had served him the tea back then, had his arms crossed and glowered at him from the corner of the room, anyway. He would not serve him anything. But _if_ he would, then Asami thought he’d better expect a lethal poison this time instead of a sleeping potion.

After a short exchange of words with the newly arrived, old man Zhou left, closing the door to the private quarters quietly behind him.

“Still nothing?”, Yoh asked, nodding towards Asami in greeting.

“No. I tried again. The kid tried as well. He’s not answering.”

He had told Yoh on the phone about his memory of the party. And about how Fei Long had tried to say something when the picture of Elisov in front of the ice sculpture had come up. Accidentally Asami had cut off his word by confessing that he had been there himself, and he had thought that Fei Long’s strange look after that had been one that was questioning Asami’s words. But what, if it wasn’t?

Yeah, they had all known each other and had probably been doing businesses together: Elisov, Toh, Asami’s father, old man Liu. But was that important? Maybe it all meant nothing in the end. Perhaps it was just some kind of freak hunch that kept bugging him.

But after his mind had been trying to make him remember that stupid evening so aggressively, he had the feeling that there was more to it. He wanted to know why Fei Long had not brought up the fact that he had been there as well. And why he had looked at Asami as if his words had just caught him unawares with some realization.

“I tried as well”, Yoh said, but dialed another time, nonetheless, switching his phone to speaker mode. The ring chimed for nearly two minutes until he gave up, sighing deeply.

“Do you have the number of Mikhail Arbatov?”, he asked, only halfway looking towards the other man.

“I have. Why?”

“Call him. Ask him if he might know where Fei Long is.”

With a snarl Asami did as he was asked. It was worth a try. He just didn’t get it, why Yoh seemed rather unwilling to mention the Russian… or did he _actually_ get it very well?

The phone rang several times before it was answered.

“What the hell do _you_ want?”, trilled Mikhail’s voice.

Asami didn’t waste a moment: “Do you know where Fei Long is? He doesn’t answer his phone.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t want to talk to you”, the Russian retorted and the Japanese could imagine his smug smile.

“He’s not answering to Yoh and the kid as well. So, do you know where he is?”

There was a pause now and in Asami’s imagination the smile slowly faded.

“No, I don’t. I’ll give it a try”, Mikhail answered, the moment Zhou hurried back into the room.

“Do that”, Asami ended the phone call. He watched the old man whispering something to Yoh, who looked down at the other in surprise – and worry – right away.

“What?”, the Japanese asked, dragging his voice. He spread his arms wide on the backrest of the sofa. His bad premonition was just growing stronger.

“His private jet left for Sanya Phoenix International this morning”, Yoh explained.

“Wonderful!”, was Asami’s verdict. That was one of the two civil airports on Hainan Island – _that_ island on which they knew Viktor Elisov was right now.

“What does that mean?”, Tao asked Yoh in Chinese. There was a bit less anger on his face now and much more worry, yet the other did not get to answer before Asami’s phone rang. It made everybody flinch, but it wasn’t Fei Long.

“Yes?”

“He’s not answering”, Mikhail told him, and added after a moment. “I’m around the corner from Baishe. I’ll see if they know anything.”

“Oh, I am there already, so is Yoh”, Asami felt satisfied to tell. What a strange coincidence that Mikhail Arbatov happened to be allegedly just a few minutes away. “Why don’t you come and join us. The more the merrier!”


	10. Tao

It really didn’t take the Russian long to arrive. After only a couple of minutes he was led into the apartment by Master Zhuo. With his hands in the pockets of his blue-jeans, a white t-shirt and black leather jacket the man once again looked oddly out of place – just like he had weeks before when he had returned that scarf Fei Long had allegedly forgot at some late-night business-meeting. Remembering that tale, Tao gripped his fists even harder.

He was angry! Angry with the Japanese storming into the apartment as if he had any right to be there, disregarding Tao’s complaints as if he wasn’t even there. Angry with him and Zhuo and Yoh talking over his head, as if he was dumb or deaf. It felt like that game where people tossed a ball to one another while the one in the middle had to catch it to finally be allowed out of the circle. And Tao was in that circle with no chance to ever reach that ball, because the adults didn’t allow him to. They kept it too fast, too high, too far away. When he tried to snatch somebody’s arm to climb it for a better opportunity then he was simply shrugged away.

He hated it! He hated the men around him talking as if he wasn’t present, or worse as if he was dimwitted and numb. Did they really think he didn’t get the sense of alarm which vibrated in the room ever since Zhou had discovered where Fei Long had gone? Did they not understand how Tao knew enough about both Yoh and that guy Asami to sense that there was something amiss? That something strange, probably something bad was happening? Was happening to Fei Long!

‘ _Yes!_ ’, he thought to himself and in his mind his voice had all the quality of a dragon’s fiery hiss. _Yes_ , they thought that his existence was one of idle bliss, no care ever troubling his mind, even when the anxiety of everybody around had become so urgent it could be felt on the skin like an icy chill.

But he _did_ worry. He did worry a lot! About Fei Long foremost who had left without a single word to anybody, going to a place which – though Tao knew it to be a pretty, tropical island – now sounded like a place of doom. He also worried about the little lies and excuses Fei Long would use, to never having to disclose his feelings towards Tao, leaving him in the dark just like those men did now. When he woke up from bad dreams, night after night, he just shrugged it away. When he would stare off into the distance like some awful memory had trapped him, he would just come up with being tired. When he wouldn’t eat properly for days, he’d just explain that he didn’t feel like it. As if that was a reason! As if anybody who wasn’t dumb would accept _that_ as an explanation and would not worry anymore that the reason for his loss appetite was not much more likely a psychological one. But that, first of all, was the problem: Fei Long just like those men here, just like anybody, took him for a dumb child. Too shallow and too young to understand the problems and worries and trauma haunting adults.

But Tao did understand them. And he felt the tension around, which made his mind race with grisly ideas of what might in fact be happening. He had to grind his teeth to stop his mind from making up scenarios out of the thin air he was left with.

Right now, he was sitting at the tea-table from where he had a good look at all three men present, after old Zhuo had left again.

The Japanese and Yoh looked very much like each other’s reflection, each sitting on one of the Chinese couches, opposite to each other, both dressed in dark suits and white shirts to which Yoh had only omitted the tie. Standing a bit off in between them, the Russian was a blotch of color.

“Any news?”, the blonde man asked, eyeing the two others for a moment and then deciding to turn towards the Japanese.

“He is on Hainan Island, probably having tea with Viktor Elisov at this moment”, Asami gnarled, taking a very ironic glance at his wristwatch. It was shortly after three in the afternoon.

“What?”, Mikhail breathed aloud, withdrawing the hands from his pockets but then seemingly not knowing what else to do with them.

“Why? What’s going on?”, he added, but the Japanese just shrugged, an annoyed smile showed on his face, that made Tao glower at him even more. If only he could sear the man’s skin with his gaze!

“We don’t know”, Yoh took to explain. “He left this morning with his private jet. He has a scheduled flight plan for a returning flight this afternoon, so he should be back in a few hours.”

The words made Tao look towards Yoh. That man was so well at hiding any emotion, any concern, but he knew him too well. He heard the worry through the trivial words and saw it on his expressionless face.

It only added to the anger already boiling inside him. Even Yoh had not told him any details, just as if he didn’t deserve to know.

That was the same game always, and he kept wondering if those people around him did it to actually shield their world from _him_ or him from their world.

Grinding his teeth again, Tao pushed his breath out through his nose to calm himself just a little bit.

“Did any of you know about this?”, the Russian inquired, but received only shaking heads as an answer.

“So, well”, the Japanese suddenly cleared his voice and looked up at the blonde man, that annoying smile now turning into a mischievous one. “How come you were just around the corner?”

Mikhail drew his shoulders up to his ears and let them sink slowly. “Don’t think that’s any of your business. It’s a free city. _Maybe_ I was shopping.”

“Are you still at that hotel? The Mandarine one?”, Tao barked into the room. It had happened, before he had realized it, and he only _just_ managed to not clap his hands onto his lips, when all three men looked at him. Heat shot into his face and he knew that he was red all over, but it didn’t even feel like he was blushing. No, actually it was more likely his anger flooding his skin, he thought, realizing how flaring his breath shot out through his nostrils and how his fingers now gripped the edge of the table.

“Uh”, the Russian began, blinking a few times, while the other two still stared at Tao in surprise. “At… the Mandarin Oriental, yes. I have a room there.”

“For all those weeks? You were there when you brought over Fei Long’s scarf.” It felt very much like he was spatting those words before the feet of the man. Not that that guy had done anything to him. Not really. He was just like the others and right now they were all his enemies.

“I had a room there some weeks back… and I have a room there now, yes”, the Russian explained, looking kind of sheepish.

He was at once confronted by the Japanese: “Why _there_?”

“Why not _there_? It’s a place as good as any.”

“Ah yes, there was something I wanted to ask”, Asami continued. He rested both his arms now once again on the backrest of the sofa, spreading them widely, like this was his place. Like this was his throne. “At the warehouse: How come Fei Long was with you?”

Mikhail shrugged again but this time it looked quite aggressively and annoyed. “I bet you know he got abducted by…”, Tao saw the men glance at him, then continue: “… you know who. I had some problem with them as well. We kind of crossed paths by chance and um… got out of there together.”

“Who know _who_? _Who_?!”, Tao insisted to know but did not receive an answer.

“Interesting”, Asami testified, then tilted his head to one side ogling the blonde man more closely. “Last time I sat here, Fei Long told me he would go to speak with you about our Russian friends. Did he?”

“Why are you so nosy, all of a sudden?”, Mikhail retorted. “You so bored by your businesses stalling?”

“No”, the Japanese answered smiling. “I’m just trying to fill in some blanks. So… did he?”

“Tao”, Yoh suddenly got up, clearing his throat. “Would you help me make some tea?”

“No!”, the boy exclaimed right away, just before Asami started to laugh coldly.

“I’m not going to drink anything that boy makes. He drugged me last time.”

“I didn’t!”, Tao yelled at him, jumping to his feet. “Master Fei put it in. And you deserved it the way you talked to him! Whenever you are involved, there is always trouble! He got shot because of you and last time he was kidnapped because of you! I bet this now is your fault as well!”

At the end Tao felt his voice crack from all his anger but these three idiots just stared at him as if he was a child throwing a tantrum. And of course, that was indeed all he was to them. All he was to Fei Long. Little more than a pet that one could keep and enjoy. When they were concerned about anything, they didn’t feel the need to share their thoughts. They didn’t even tell him any details, like he would not understand anyway. Or like it just wasn’t his business to know. But he had all right to. This was his home and right now he wanted to toss them all out.

 _‘If only…’_ , he found a thought form in his mind, that felt ugly and hideous. _‘If only they knew… if only everybody knew who he was! Whose son he was!’_

Then this would be his tower. It would be his men outside of that large door. And they would obey his every word. So, if he told them to through those men out of the windows, they would. And if he told them to explain everything to him, then there would be no secrets anymore and no excuses.

Tao jumped, just like anybody, when suddenly a telephone rang. It was the Japanese’s. He held it up, eyeing it a moment, leaving it to sing its tune several times. Gleaming at the Russian with ultimate relish he finally answered.

“Where are you?”

A voice could be heard faintly but indiscernible, the words too quiet.

“Well, then I guess you better hurry home. No need to call back everyone by the way. We’re all sitting here in idle harmony, curiously waiting for you to do some explaining.”

And with that Asami hung up.

The next hours passed in utter silence with each of the three men sitting in a chair or sofa of themselves, Asami and Yoh sometimes lighting a cigarette and Mikhail checking his phone every few minutes with increasing irritation showing on his face.

At some point Tao didn’t manage to sit still anymore. He started to march through the large apartment, slamming doors, stomping his feet. There was so much anger in him, he just didn’t know where to put it. Yes, he could scream at the men in the living room but at least two of them would not care at all about what he thought of them and Yoh would hardly show any reaction anyhow. Instead, he trampled into Fei Long’s room, gripped one of the pillows and started to smash it onto the bed, then against the curtains, against the windows, against the dresser. In the end he kicked it around the room, but it just didn’t rip.

He felt like crying most of the time from his anger, but whenever he thought that he would actually start with it no tears fell. Maybe they evaporated from all the heat on his skin.

At half past six, when Tao was once more sitting at the tea table with crossed arms and a sinister gaze, the large doors to the private quarters were opened and finally Fei Long stepped in. He stopped in the doorway, contemplating the four people waiting there for him.

Tao bit his tongue not to greet him.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”, the long-awaited asked, already sounding annoyed.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”, the Russian asked, but the Japanese’s voice was more persistent.

“Why don’t _you_ tell us that first? What were you doing on Hainan Island?”, Asami snarled, spreading across the sofa once more as if it was his throne.

Fei Long’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I have done what you asked me for. I have helped you.”

“Did you meet Viktor Elisov?”, Mikhail blurted out, jumping to his feet, but the Chinese’s answer wasn’t matching his tone of urgency by far.

“Yes, I did”, he said in complete calm. “You will pay him a reparation worth those goods you interfered with and will be off the hook for that”, Fei Long explained to the blonde man, then turned towards Asami: “As to you, you are in the clear as well, but you will have to deal with that person Sudou yourself. I will not interfere with your private issues.”

“That’s news to me!”, Asami barked back, getting to his feet as well. “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

The tall Japanese slowly advanced on the other whose eyes were slowly turning cold.

“Because I did not want you to interfere. And because I knew I could handle this better on my own.”

“So, what did you offer him in return?”, Asami hissed just two steps away from the smaller man, leering down on him. Fei Long did not back down or away.

“That is a business matter between him and me.”

“Are you taking me for a fool?”

“No, I am not”, Fei Long declared, striding past the Japanese. “I am just taking you for an ingrate.”

At that, Asami grabbed the smaller man’s upper arm yanking him back so fiercely, Fei Long stumbled and had to be pulled back to his feet by the large hand.

“Let go!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were at that party? Does this have anything to do with your father?”, Asami barked at him, the other’s face just inches from his own.

Tao had jumped to his feet, just as Yoh had, but it was Mikhail who was closest… and still didn’t do anything. There was some strange expression on his face which Tao couldn’t understand. In a way he seemed more impatient that worried or angry.

“I was a child back then, Asami. I was six years old. I hardly remember that I was there at all. And everything else about this is the business of Baishe. _You_ came to me, asking me for help. I did help you. Take it as it is. It’s the best deal you will get. But what bargain I made is none of your concern, as you might still remember you are not my friend. You are a business rival.”

Fei Long had spoken quietly, evenly, his voice smooth, his eyes holding the gaze of the golden ones burning down into him.

“I’ll decide whether I take this deal once you stop lying to me”, Asami breathed dangerously.

“Lying to you?”, Fei Long laughed and at that ripped his arm from the other’s grip. “That party made me remember something. I looked it up and found that I can use it for this deal. But the particulars of this transaction are off limits to you. You do not get to tell me how I should go about my businesses and I will not disclose details about Baishe to you. Also, you do not get to lecture me about lying! You asked me whether I was doing business with Elisov and failed to tell me that indeed _you_ were.”

Suddenly Fei Long spun around, shooting his deadly glare towards Mikhail: “And so did _you_! You both kept me in the dark about this. So do not preach to me about what I should do or not. I just saved both your lives!”

At the end he had started to shout, and his voice rang back from the walls of the living room which was not used to that kind of noise.

Fei Long trembled slightly, his fists gripped so tightly as Tao felt his own. He could feel his fingernails digging into his skin and his teeth aching from grinding his them. Still, he stood here, still no one cared about him.

Asami raised his hand to his face, rubbing with two fingers over his eyes. He exhaled sharply, but when he looked up again his golden eyes weren’t a bit less annoyed, even though he seemed calmed down a bit.

“So”, he growled. “What now?”

Fei Long regarded him for a few seconds coolly, then shrugged slightly.

“Both your names are on that guestlist now. We will do as we planned. We will go there Saturday evening; he will await us, and we will talk in private. Burying the hatched as he called it. But we will have our men near, just in case. Though I don’t think he’ll dare… I think he knows this deal is the best for all of us.”

“Is it?”, Asami asked, putting all the world’s doubt into those two short words, but Fei Long didn’t bother.

“It is.”

With another growl the Japanese turned to leave. “You still need to tell me where to send my men on that island. Where your base is.”

“I will”, the Chinese promised, then fell silent for a few moments, until the other man was nearly at the door. “Asami”, he spoke then aloud. “If you don’t come, then this will all be for nothing. If everybody plays along like sane men, this all can be over in a few days.”

“I hope you’re right”, the Japanese retorted, then closed the door behind him.

There fell another silence, in which Tao could indeed hear his teeth grinding into each other. Yoh was the first to stir and then to clear his throat, but whatever he might have felt to say, one look around made him reconsider.

“I’m off”, he declared in exchange, then left.

When he was gone, Fei Long took a deep breath, but again he did not turn towards Tao, who still stood there, still clenching his fists, still shaking with anger, maybe more than ever. Instead, the Chinese man threw his angry gaze at the Russian who looked away frowning now.

“You could at least have answered your phone”, the blonde finally said, rather meekly.

“I had other things on my mind”, was the harsh answer.

“Yeah, well, you know”, Mikhail started to talk, and his voice got angrier with every word: “We were kind of worried here. So just sending one stupid text message or answering one short phone call certainly hadn’t hurt you.”

“I’m not some kid on his first school-trip, Mikhail. I don’t need you to worry”, Fei Long barked back. They were throwing the words back and forth halfway across the room now.

“Well, it’s not that easy. It’s not like you can stop worrying about anybody by willpower.”

“Listen! I am not your damsel in distress”, the Chinese flared up. “Do you see me as some kind of princess for you to save? I am the one who just saved you, so open your eyes!”

“I didn’t ask for that!”, Mikhail shot back, his blue eyes now burning with anger.

“You are welcome nonetheless!”, Fei Long now marched towards the other but didn’t bother to lower his voice. “And you might recall that I did not make any promises to you. I am not your girlfriend. If I don’t want to answer your calls I won’t.”

“Fine!”, Mikhail spat back at him, throwing his arms into the air in aggressive scorn. “You might at least have called _me_ before _him!_ ”

At that Fei Long laughed bitterly. He even got onto his toes to hurl his answer into the other’s face. “So, is this actually all? Are you jealous, I called Asami first? He was just the first who tried to reach me.”

“What the fuck do I know?!”, Mikhail bellowed back, so loud the Chinese actually flinched. “What do I know what you do? What do I know what you do with Asami or Elisov or whatever? How do I know you didn’t just whore yourself out to Elisov as you did to me?”

His voice echoes from the ceiling and the large windows several times, but there was no answer.

Fei Long just started up at him, his face suddenly expressionless.

And then it turned cold.

“Get out”, the Chinese whispered, swallowing hard.

Mikhail jerked his head back looking down at the other both in anger and shock. Apart from that, he didn’t move.

“Get out!”, Fei Long hissed again, his eyes becoming hard and icy.

“I…”, the Russian tried to say but at that moment Fei Long drew the gun he carried in a holster in the back of his trousers’ waistband and pointed it at the taller man’s head.

“Get out before I shoot you.”

Bursting into an angry laugh, Mikhail stepped backwards, raising his hands.

“You know what? Screw this!”, he spat, then turned around and left.

Trembling Fei Long finally put the gun away, but only to grip with both hands the backrest of a chair. His breathing was unsteady, indeed more the searing hiss of an antagonized dragon.

But Tao did not care anymore. He had witnessed all of this adult-madness once again like he wasn’t even there, not making a noise, hardly even existing to not disturb anybody. Yet, he was there! And none of this made any sense to him.

“Are you happy now?”, he heard himself whisper and wasn’t sure if he could even be understood. Maybe it would be better, he thought for a very short moment, to just let it slip once again. But the rage that made his heart thumb so fiercely against his ribs that it hurt and the blood that shot into his head and flashed before his eyes did not allow him to back down.

“Not now, Tao”, Fei Long muttered.

“Not now, Tao! Not now! That’s what I always get. I’ve been getting it all day long! I only knew that something had happened to you, that something was wrong. But they didn’t tell me _what_. They just left me worry like _me_ worrying could not be really bad, because I’m just a kid.”

“Nothing happened to me”, was the short answer, as if all these other words had not been understood. And most likely, they hadn’t.

Tao grabbed one of the pillows on the next chair and threw it at Fei Long. The man hardly had to move his head instinctively to avoid it, but then he looked at the boy in bewilderment.

“Tao, I…”, he started, but the other didn’t want to listen to any attempt to calm him down and make him be obedient.

“No! You don’t care about anybody else but you! They were all worried! _I_ was worried! But you don’t care. The only one you ever care about is yourself!”, he screamed at the top of his lungs until he heard the large windows throwing his voice back at him. He wished for the effect to be even better: To triple, quadruple the noise he made and for the glass to shake in fear of his rage.

“I had to take…”

“Care of other things, yes! As always!”, Tao shot back, stomping across the room in a wide round around his supposed master. “You are the most selfish person I know! And you are a liar!”

“That is enough!”, suddenly Fei Long snapped back, pushing the chair away. He had taken some steps towards Tao, but then stopped himself, as if he wasn’t sure, what he was about to do… or supposed to do.

“No!”, the boy yelled again and stomped his feet onto the floor. It would seem childish, he knew, but it felt so good. It felt so good to finally retaliate and riot. “You don’t get to tell me what to do! You are not my parent!”

Fei Long made another step towards him and Tao turned around and bolted out of the room, keeping shouting: “You are not my father! You are just an impostor! You don’t get to tell me what to do because you are a liar. You are a bad person!”

He had nearly crossed down the whole hallway when Fei Long followed, not running at this point, but looking after him in utter confusion.

At that Tao stopped abruptly and turned around: “You are just an impostor. You are not my father! You are just an adopted brat who stole the throne!”

Now those words filled the hallway, echoing from the walls and the ceiling, washing away over Fei Long and brandishing on the large wooden door which led out of the private quarters. It was only then that the man started to hurry towards him.

“Shut up!”, Fei Long hissed, breaking into a run when the boy turned around and stormed off.

But the distance was too big. Tao rushed into his room, threw close the door and locked it a second before a fist was hit against it from the other side.

“You are not my father!”, Tao kept screaming.

“You are not my father! You are just a thief!”

He covered his ears and closed his eyes, but his voice kept bellowing those words.

“You are a thief! You are not my father! You killed my father!”

He could taste a first tear on his lips, but still didn’t back down.

“You killed my father! And I hate you!”


	11. Fei Long

He didn’t know how long he smashed his fists against the door, first ordering the boy to open up, then begging him. In the end he didn’t have any strength anymore. He sank against the wall, sat down against it, pulled his knees to his chest and hid his face between his arms.

Like that he had done when he had been a child. In the darkness he could pretend _not to be_. He would not be sad anymore, not angry, not afraid, because he just _wasn’t_ anymore. And where there was no heart beating, no eyes crying, no skin hurting any more there was no thought left as well, that could torture him.

He didn’t move until he felt the boy’s head lean onto his shoulder, his fingers grabbing around his arm.

“I am sorry”, Tao whispered, his voice shaking. Drops of wetness soaked into the fabric of Fei Long’s linen shirt. Looking up, turning towards the boy, he found tears streaming down the small face.

He put his arms around the child, which threw itself at him in return, its embrace so fiercely it might stop his breathing, but Fei Long didn’t complain.

“I am sorry”, Tao muttered again, the words trembling as much as his body.

“It’s alright”, the adult answered, his voice not a bit more stable. “ _I_ am sorry. I’m sorry I made you worry.”

For a short while the boy just hiccupped with sobs and snivels, while his tears wet the collar of the other’s shirt, and Fei Long started to very slightly sway from side to side, hardly noticeable. But still it felt good. It felt right. It was so rarely that he knew instinctively what to do with Tao.

“You never tell me anything”, the child whimpered after a while. “You never tell me what makes you sad and worried, as if you think that I wouldn’t realize that you _are_ sad or worried anyway. But I _do_. And I want to help.”

Fei Long felt the breath catch in his throat so intensely, shortly he thought he would suffocate. He had to force the pressure down.

“But you seem like you want to suffer alone. Like you think you need to atone for something. And I am sure that you don’t, because you are a good person.”

With a sigh that he could not replace, Fei Long pulled the boy closer, so hard he had to make sure not to break him, but it was to keep himself from trembling. He leaned his cheek onto the child’s head and closed his eyes, trapping the tears inside.

He wished it was the truth. He wished that not some part in his mind insisted that the angry words he had heard before were indeed his reality. He was a thief and a murderer. He did not deserve Baishe, he did not deserve Tao. He did not deserve any of it. That’s what Yan would have said. That’s what he had eventually said so very often. _His_ was the voice now ringing in Fei Long’s head, filling his mind again with dread and doubt and torture.

He wasn’t good enough; he was not smart or strong enough. He did not deserve loyalty, let alone happiness. And never ever love. The closest he would be to _that_ would be by protecting the love of others. Like saving Asami and Akihito.

It was Mikhail’s voice that contradicted: “I _need_ you to understand that you are being loved. You are wrong if you think that you could never find love, because I will swear on my life to you that you can.”

That made him gasp for air and allowed him to open his eyes again.

“I am sorry, Tao”, he whispered, nestling his cheek against the boy’s forehead. “I am not good at talking about these things. And I don’t want you to worry. I wish you would know nothing but happiness and bliss.”

It was stupid of course. There was no way of shielding the child from the world. The longer he managed to keep him locked up in a golden cage the harsher it would crumble, the less prepared would he be to survive. But still, he didn’t know how to change. How should he let go of the hope that Tao would always stay this young, this innocent, when taking in and raising the boy was probably the only good and decent thing he had ever done?

Still hiccupping with his sobs Tao looked up now. His large eyes were reddened and glossy and still streaming with tears.

“I just wish you would tell me whatever you can. If you have nightmares don’t pretend that you haven’t because I still _know_ you have. Don’t ignore phone calls a whole day long when you are gone without any word. You say you don’t want me to worry but then you do such things.”

Leaning his head forward against Fei Long’s chest, he started to cry in earnest again.

The man caught him in his arms, pulling him into his embrace once more, swaying softly from side to side.

“I am sorry, Tao. I am sorry”, he assured. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of that. I’ll try not to do that again.”

“Try much harder!”, Tao retorted.

“I will!”

They sat like that for a long while, while the hushed ticking of a near clock washed the time away. It was quiet in the apartment apart from that. The noise of the city at the feet of the tower hardly ever made it up here and usually no one dared to enter the private quarters without asking permission first.

Fei Long had thought that the boy might have fallen asleep when he suddenly spoke again.

“Was that dangerous today?”, he asked abashed and his voice a bit croaky.

“No, not really. I had a very good Ace up my sleeve”, the man answered quietly, then deliberated for a moment and finally added: “But the others didn’t know that. They might have thought I did something stupid.”

Tao nodded slightly. “So did _I_.”

He sighed deeply, then changed his position a bit, that he could catch a strand of Fei Long’s black hair with his fingers and play with it.

“I am _really_ sorry”, the man assured.

“So…?”, the child began, but fell silent again, and Fei Long felt the urge to breath a kiss onto his forehead.

He could hear Tao chuckle quietly to that, but then he sighed again.

“So…”, he began anew, then cleared his throat and continued: “What’s with you and Yoh?”

Fei Long felt himself freeze for a second. Memories of a moving door in a small Taipei apartment flooded into his mind.

“What do you mean?”, he asked, feeling guilty right away. He needed to be more honest with the boy, but this… what did he know?

“When he came back, I thought you’d be together. But you’re not, are you?”

Interpretations of those few words roared through his mind, trying to fathom what exactly the boy was asking, what exactly he knew… or believed to know.

‘ _Were they together?_ ’ In a way, _yes_. Yoh had come back to be with him… as a friend. But that much Tao knew. He knew they were friendly, he had been at Yoh’s apartment, he had seen them both together. Obviously, he wasn’t asking after that.

“No”, Fei Long finally felt was the only honest answer. “We’re not. That… wouldn’t work.”

Tao nodded at his side. “I like Yoh.”

“I like him, too”, Fei Long answered. It was the truth. But that didn’t change anything.

“I don’t like Asami.”

That made the man snicker. “Yes, he has that effect on some people.”

“I don’t understand why Akihito likes him. He is _so_ mean. He’s a bully!”

Tao looked up now, frowning at the adult. “But you like him?”

“In a way”, Fei Long shrugged. “Sometimes I want to slap him.”

That made the child grin and nod heavily. He moved around a few moments, then leaned against the man’s shoulder again.

“And the other? Mikhail?”, he asked after a short while, his voice now quieter again.

Fei Long noticed that he had held his breath at that question and tried to let it go but could only get rid of it with a sigh.

“Mikhail?”

“You said, you’re not his girlfriend. Of course, not… but does he want you to be his _boyfriend_?”

He paused, wondering what to reply to that, how to answer that. Yet actually the question was easy, wasn’t it? He knew the answer to that. And obviously Tao had figured it all out already. So much to shielding him! In that golden cage atop the tower, he seemed to have gathered still so much more than Fei Long had ever anticipated.

“He would like that, yes.”

“And do you like him?”

“Yes, I do”, he felt the urge – and peace – to answer truthfully once more.

“Then you should call him. Don’t let him get away.”

Tao grabbed his hands at that to Fei Long’s surprise. But a second later he knew why. He could feel them shake – from the memory of those words, from the anger, from the hurt, from self-loathing and perhaps most of all from fear. Fear which started to tie up his throat right away and made him bite his lower lip. What if he had pushed Mikhail too far away? Too far to ever reach him again. However, Tao held tight to him, keeping his hands from shaking, keeping his body from hugging itself and pretending he wasn’t there at all.

“You call him _now_. Or I will!”

He selected the number with quavering fingers, raising the phone to his ear slowly, cautiously, as if he was afraid that it would burn his skin. The ringing was incredibly loud. It made him flinch. It almost made him whimper which each and every single tune that proclaimed that the other wasn’t answering. But then the ringing ended abruptly.

“What?”, Mikhail spoke harshly and fast.

It took Fei Long a second to find his voice. “Where are you?”

“On the way to my car”, was the answer, factually, dry.

“Where are you going?”, he asked, his words nearly trailing away. He gasped for breath, even though he knew that the other would hear it. He just couldn’t prevent it.

But Mikhail did not reply. There was a silence between them, transported by two small electric devices, and that silence was a giant abyss of darkness, that was slowly, gradually growing. Feeling his lower lip tremble, Fei Long searched for the hand of Tao, that still clung to his left. Then he heard Mikhail swallow hard and knew that the abyss was not that big at all. Not yet.

The reason why the other wasn’t answering was the irrevocability his words might bring upon. If he named a destination, if he uttered where he was going, then he would go there now. It would have been decided and he didn’t want to do that.

“Can you pick me up?”, Fei Long whispered, before Mikhail could change his mind. “In front of the building, at the bus stop? Can you pick me up, please?”

Silence fell again and Fei Long closed his eyes, squeezing the little warm hand holding his own.

“Give me half an hour”, Mikhail finally said, then hung up.

He put on some other clothes quickly, that were more suited for the 17°C of Hong Kong. Then he hurried downstairs. He wanted to be the first there, wanted to be the one waiting. When he stepped out of the building and down to the street, he had nearly 15 minutes left, wrapped his jacket around himself and kept watching the cars approaching from the right.

Due to the early night, there were many people around, some late shoppers, some on their way home from work. Tourists were taking photos of the IFC building, which was glowing through the low clouds, or hurried down to the piers. A group of teenagers sat on the low wall surrounding the set of steep stairs over which water cascaded down. They made quite some noise, but Fei long didn’t mind them. In the ruckus and busy of the common people he could hide away, mostly.

Two young women who were waiting at the bus stop had spotted him. The smaller girl, with slightly colored skin and black curls, kept looking towards him and smiling, while the taller girl, with a blonde ponytail and a face full of freckles, seemed rather blushed. They argued for a while, until the darker girl just pulled the other with her and marched over.

“Hey!”, she trilled happily at Fei Long, who was a head taller. She had an odd little dot of a nose and beautifully huge eyes. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Don’t…”, the other girl hissed, staying a step behind and hardly daring to look up at the man.

“I’m being picked up”, Fei Long answered. He didn’t usually get chatted up by anybody. No one ever had a chance for that – or dared to.

“Girlfriend?”, the feisty girl asked, positively beaming up at him, though the other girl hit her lightly on the arm.

“No”, Fei Long replied. He could not help but smile. There was something about those two girls that felt heartwarming. Maybe it was just his mood…

“Oh, well then”, the darkish girl continued, erecting herself to her full height with a little shrug. “I am Milena, this is Tereza.”

She stuck out her hand and the man shook it. It was as firm as he had expected. Tereza’s fingers however seemed to tremble in his touch and she blushed all over, taking a step back at once. “We’re from Czech and on a study trip”, the other girl just chimed on without much of a break, “and right now we are looking for a nice place to have drink. Would you like to join? You and however is picking you up?”

Her eyes were strangely reassuring. As if this was the most natural thing to do. As if she dared to just talk to anybody at the side of a road, no matter who that person was. Her whole countenance gleamed with joy.

“I’m sorry”, Fei Long answered, and indeed felt like it. “I can’t.”

She eventually pouted at that, but the face of the other girl was even more touching. Her green eyes dashed up towards the man for a second, then she looked away, biting her lower lip, staring off somewhere into the distance, gripping tightly Milena’s arm.

“Too bad”, the dark girl concluded, patting the hand holding tight to her.

They were about to say goodbye to him, when the Chinese interrupted them.

“Are you staying in Hong Kong for a while?”, he asked.

“About two months more.”

“Give me your number”, he heard himself say and wondered for a second. Then he took out his phone and handed it to the smaller girl which now seemed to be brimming with excitement. She dialed in both names, then the number and checked both a second time with utter thoroughness.

“If I have time, I’ll give you a call”, he said. This was so odd! Did these things usually happen? It wasn’t as if he often went anywhere alone. Usually, he would take a car even for the shortest distances, for safety. It made him remember the gun, he still carried with him at his back, and that these two girls had no idea with whom they were talking.

But now the blonde girl was smiling slightly at him, though he hadn’t promised anything. It seemed like the idea alone that he might call, had made her happy.

Fei Long only turned when he heard a car pull into the area of the bus stop. It was a Mini. And it made his heart jump.

“This is my ride. Have a nice evening”, he said, before walking away.

“Hey!”, Milena called behind him. “Do you have a name?”

“Fei”, he answered, then got into the car.


	12. Mikhail

“New bodyguards?”, he asked, as Fei Long got into the passenger seat, knowing that his voice didn’t really convey the joke.

“They asked me if we wanted to get a drink”, the other explained. He put on his seatbelt while still watching the two girls who were walking back to the bus stop post now arm in arm.

“And _do_ we?”

“No.”

‘ _Mh’_ , Mikhail made and steered the Mini back into the traffic. “Where do you want to go?”

“Just drive, please”, Fei Long asked, leaning his head against the window. He checked his phone briefly, then put it away. “I have their number, so maybe another time.”

Mikhail frowned at that. “Do you get phone numbers like that often?”

Surely, if Fei Long was a normal citizen, he’d probably have to keep people from bugging him, but in his position and usual ways to move outside, Mikhail could not imagine that he ever got flirted with by some girls chatting him up on the corner of the street.

“No”, the other admitted as he had expected. “That was the first time. They asked me if I was waiting for my girlfriend. I said no.”

‘ _Mh’_ , again. Mikhail realized that it sounded like a growl, but right now he couldn’t help it. “That will have given them hope.”

“Yes. I didn’t want to disappoint them. So, I didn’t tell them I was waiting for my boyfriend.”

At that Mikhail hit the break sharply. Both of them were thrown forward hard and caught by the seatbelts.

“What?”, Fei Long shrieked, clapping one hand against the cover of the glovebox for support. The car behind honked angrily, but Mikhail didn’t feel like apologizing, when he sped on again.

“Don’t make fun of me”, he hissed.

“I’m not”, the other spoke, his voice very quiet. He leaned his head against the window again. “Just keep driving, please. I like to watch the city lights rush by.”

For a while Mikhail drove along the piers and Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park to the west, then turned around short of Mount Davis. Through the urban canyons of Tai Ping Shan they made their way east again, the interior of the car only illuminated by the panel instruments and the busy lights of the city sweeping across. Approaching Hong Kong Park, Fei Long finally raised his head.

“Can you turn right here?”

Mikhail did, and also adhered to the following requests which took them up the roads slowly winding their way uphill through the Mid-Levels. He did not know where they were heading and didn’t feel the urge to ask. The lights of the skyscrapers were still so close it seemed he would be able to grab them, if only he opened the window, but the roads kept getting emptier and smaller to the point where he wasn’t sure if a car was actually supposed to go this way. But Fei Long didn’t stop him until he finally pointed towards a dark corner to the right – one that Mikhail had probably passed without noticing that it was a junction. It looked very much like a hole torn through the lush vegetation now black in the night.

For a few meters only the car’s front lights illuminated the world until they passed through what now only seem to be a narrow pass in the natural formation of Hong Kong’s hillside. On the other side the road became wider again, sloped up another double bend and then ended in front of a giant cast iron gate set in a high wall of bright sandstone. The mansion far behind atop another stretch of road was built of the same rock. It had to be a colonial one, for to Mikhail it looked very much like a castle from a Jane Austen story with high, arched windows, and many gables and chimneys and ledges.

He was sure it would look beautiful if only there as any light in it. Because _now_ , underneath the greyish night sky of Hong Kong it seemed utterly dead. Like a carcass left to be forgotten.

Fei Long got out of the car, nonetheless, startling Mikhail.

“Hey!”, he hissed, but the other was gone already, stepped towards the gate, gripping two of the metal bars and leaning his head against them. When it didn’t seem like he would come back soon, Mikhail finally turned off the car and got out himself.

It was quite chilly up here due to the height and the wind and the dampness seeping across from the rampant greenery. Not cold… just not comfortably mild enough to be enjoyable. The empty house leering down onto them added to that as much as the nightly noise of the forest mixed with the distant city ruckus.

Mikhail pushed his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t sure what they were doing here. He wasn’t really sure, why he had come.

When his phone had rang showing Fei Long’s name on the display his heart had nearly stopped. But when it had returned to its normal beat it had hurt and the anger had come back. For a brief moment he had thought about just turning his car around and driving home to Macau, but then he hadn’t found the will to do that.

It was as if something inside him wasn’t hurt enough and still craved more.

And as if something inside him knew he had dealt hurt and wanted to make it right.

“That your father’s place?”, he asked, feeling stupid, just standing here. Waiting.

Fei Long shrugged very slightly. “No… It’s mine. Since Yan is proclaimed dead, it is mine.”

He paused, biting his lip and frowning. For a second he even squinted his eyes as if he was scouting for something in the distance. “Someone is looking after it for me, but I haven’t been here in all those years. Not once.”

Very slowly he turned his head, looking up at the other, and his eyes looked sad and determined at the same time.

“You said that you couldn’t promise me that… _this_ … _us_ would work out. That it was unwise and stupid. And I told you that you didn’t know me.”

Mikhail pulled his shoulders sharply up to his ears and let them sink again. He remembered those words. True, Fei Long wasn’t an open book. There was hardly anything he knew about his past, but he didn’t care about that. He never had and now tried to convince himself that it still was not important. That he loved him, even if some bit of him raged at that confession.

Turning back again towards the mansion, Fei Long resumed talking: “There is something I need you to know.”

Then he broke off, again biting his lips, blinking into the distance, for moments obviously lost in thought and contemplation, until he sighed, closed his eyes and leaned his forehead onto the metal bars. Slowly, quietly he spoke.

“I never slept with Asami. He could have forced himself on me than. I was confused and weak and I wouldn’t have put up much of a fight. Because I was used to that sort of thing. But Asami didn’t. With that he was the first. In the end, he saved me.”

Looking back at the other man he whispered: “I do not love him. Not _anymore_. But in a way I am bound to him and I don’t think that will ever change.”

Mikhail looked away. He wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted to hear. It was stupid to get so angry just because Fei Long had called Asami back first. It was juvenile but it fit so perfectly with all those pubescent motions pushing him around whenever Fei Long was involved. On the one hand it now felt like a gruesome overreaction. Only that he still remembered the worry and fear and rage.

When he looked back again, the Chinese had his eyes closed once more. It seemed like he was retelling an old tale. Old history maybe, but his skin had turned so white he seemed to glow in the gloom.

“Asami was the first who ever talked to me like I was capable of anything. My father never did, because he felt sorry for Yan. And Yan…”, Fei Long swallowed hard and when he spoke again his voice had become even quieter. “…for Yan I was his property. His soldier he would send out to kill. His who… his whore… he would send out … to…”

He broke off, gripping tightly at the bars.

Mikhail watched him, only realizing after a moment that his own breathing had stopped. He turned away, clearing his throat, panting harshly against the cold that had caught in his chest out of nowhere.

“He made me believe that this was all I could be. And that this way I needed to repay my family. That it was my duty to offer my … body and soul because of the life they had gifted me.”

 _‘I didn’t know that’_ , Mikhail wanted to say, but his voice didn’t want to leave his throat. It stuck inside him, wanting to throttle him, while he remembered meeting _that_ man in Taiwan under a false name. It had taken Mikhail only a short while to figure out who that person, that wanted to do business with the bratva, was, and when he had known, he had understood what Yan Tsui’s survival meant. For Fei Long he was a threat to his position and life. Therefore, Mikhail had decided to – so to speak – deliver him to the head of Baishe on a silver plate. It hadn’t worked out quite as well as he had hoped; that much he had learned later, though he had never found out any details.

But now he realized what he had really done there, forcing Fei Long to deal with his brother. Instead, he should just have gotten rid of him himself. And had he known _this_ , he had.

Feeling his insides clench and his head burn, he swore he had killed him. He had made him suffer and had ripped him to shreds, if only he had known.

“I didn’t know”, he finally gasped, putting a hand to his lips to stop them from trembling.

Fei Long looked back at him, his eyes only sad now. “I know. No one knows. I killed them all. Everybody who ever touched me. After I got out of prison, I looked them all up. And I killed them all.”

Letting go of the bars he took a step towards the Russian, his gaze turning cold. “And if you ever tell anybody, I will kill you. Do you hear me? I will kill you!”

A single tear rolled down his cheek, but Mikhail raised his hand to it and caught it. Fei Long’s skin felt ice cold in his palm, and he shivered slightly.

“I won’t”, he promised. “I never will.”

The Chinese raised a finger to Mikhail’s trembling lips as if he wanted to calm them.

“I have some papers with which I can destroy Elisov. I will not tell you any details, but if those files become public, it will be his end. And they will be published if anything happens to me. That is all I can tell you. It is nothing more than that.”

Mikhail nodded slightly, panting something close to a relieved laugh. He felt stupid. He felt like he had raged for nothing, but he still remembered the anger burning inside him so very well. The anger about Fei Long being close to Asami, the anger about fearing for his safety. He let his fingers brush through that black hair which even in the gloom here shimmered.

“When I came to you for that… _deal_ ”, the other suddenly continued, his voice a bit shakier than even before. He had to wet his lips to go on. “…I knew you would ask for sexual favors. _That’s_ why I came alone. The only reason I did that was… because the prospect of sleeping with you seemed like actually a fine deal.”

Mikhail snickered to that. “You didn’t seem like that.”

“No”, Fei Long mouthed without a tune. He drew a bit closer, looking up to the Russian from underneath long black lashes. “I didn’t trust you back then.”

Mikhail threw his arms around him, pulling him close and Fei Long grabbed his leather jacket, leaning his head against the man’s shoulder.

Feeling how the Chinese’s skin slowly became warmer in his arms, he nestled with his lips through his hair, breathing kisses onto his forehead and temples.

“Your brother was an idiot”, he spoke at some point, aloud and with certainty. “That _Baishe_ which he was so fond of crumbled away the moment your father died, torn apart by envious men fighting for a tiny bit of dominance. It was all gone and lost. But you took up the broken bits and fixed them back together. You made the White Snake rise up like Phoenix from the ashes and created so much more than there ever was before. This is not your father’s heritage anymore, or anything you need to feel gratitude for towards the Liu family. This is you own empire.”

When they approached the IFC again, the Russian asked about where to let the other off. But Fei Long took out his phone and informed someone on the other end to open a gate to the Mini. Then he guided Mikhail into some car park and into some darker areas in there until they ended in front of a large steel gate that slowly moved aside.

Behind there was parked an armada of onyx-black Lexus and Mercedes limousines, some vans and motorcycles all in the same dark grey, and a sleek black and white Mercedes Maybach Cabriolet of which less than 300 had ever been built.

Mikhail ogled at all of that when he got out of his car. It wasn’t that he didn’t have quite a full car park – one matching this one easily. There even were an incredibly beautiful Aston Martin and an absurdly expensive Lamborghini in his collection. But _he_ did in fact drive them all now and then.

He looked at Fei Long in puzzlement, who was greeted by the security personnel guarding this entrance to Baishe HQ. Yet he waited until they were in the elevator speeding them up the 90th floor, to finally speak up: “I thought you don’t have a license?”

“I don’t”, Fei Long admitted smiling slightly. He shrugged.

When they left, there was only one guardsman watching the entrance to the top floor, but Mikhail felt certain, that others had to be around closely.

The dragon of Baishe greeted the man with a nod, then walked past him, with Mikhail keeping up swiftly. They entered through the large wooden doors and Fei Long locked them behind them.

His gaze wandered down the hallway and he seemed to listen closely, so Mikhail copied him, hearing nothing but the faint ticking of a clock somewhere.

Still, he now remembered. “Tao?”, he whispered.

“He’s probably asleep”, Fei Long answered looking up at him. His eyes seemed pensive while he just stared up for a while, blinking slowly, and Mikhail just stared back. He could drown in those eyes.

“Come”, the other finally said. They left both their jackets at the wardrobe, then walked down the hallway, but when Mikhail wanted to enter the living room, Fei Long caught him by the hand and pulled him further down, into a small corridor and then into his bedroom.

Here Mikhail had not been as of yet. He had seen the hallway, the living room, the bathroom… _Oh_ , that memory shot to his groin instantly and he exhaled sharply, tying to clear his mind.

The room was beautifully decorated with Chinese antiques and art, with a fine fabric tapestry, wood inlays, paper lanterns and thick curtains. It was strange to compare the modern glass and steel tower the IFC was from the outside with the traditional warm and cozy interior. As strange as it was to know that the cold dragon of Baishe and the warmhearted Fei Long were the same person.

Walking in front of the large windows, Mikhail looked outside. The clouds hung so low in Victoria Harbor that they seemed to surge against the tower floors below, while Kowloon on the far side of the strait could only by seen by its lights glistening through the mist and dark.

Fei Long stepped up to him from behind, closing his arms around Mikhail’s chest, leaning his head against the back of the taller man. He seemed to sway lightly, hardly noticeable, but it seemed intentionally. So, the Russian just moved along, holding tight onto the arms that embraced him.

“It’s a really beautiful view”, Mikhail muttered after a while. He wasn’t sure if Fei Long was about to fall asleep. He had been so quiet, it seemed odd.

But now the other released him from the hug. He stepped around and in front of him, looking up out of darkened, intense eyes.

“I’ll give you a beautiful view”, he hummed, and a smile showed on his lips.

Mikhail flinched when he felt Fei Long’s hand at his belt, opening it. But those eyes staring at him seemed to force him to remain still just by their strength.

Warm fingers opened the button and the zip of his jeans, pushing them down a tiny bit, then they slipped inside of his underwear finding his cock which just didn’t want to keep as still as the rest of him.

Slowly Fei Long sank to his knees, while pulling Mikhail’s growing member out. He let his hand rub up and down the burning skin a few times. The Russian had to grab one of the window frames for support, looking down unto the beautiful dragon, kneeling in front of him. The smile on his face grew stronger when some drops of precum oozed out of the tip, then he licked them away slowly, before finally closing his lips around the thick cock, pushing it deep into his mouth.

Mikhail panted heavily, brushing his fingers through Fei Long’s hair. This was indeed the most incredible sight he had ever had.

“Don’t stop me this time”, the Chinese took a moment to speak, looking up feverishly, then started to work in earnest.

Soon enough Mikhail couldn’t keep himself from thrusting forward with his hips. He clutched a fist at the black hair, fearing he would hurt the man, but Fei Long did not as much as flinch. He just kept going, pushing the dick as deep as he could with every move forward, licking his tongue across the veins and the lines of the cock head.

And while he did that he always kept looking up, his eyes overcast from the lust he felt simply by giving head and nothing more – just like he had been in that hotel weeks before. There were tears glistening on his lashes from the effort and his cheeks where red and puffy, but still he never stopped, and Mikhail kept panting and moaning harder, finally looking up again to the distant lights that suddenly swam together into one large sea of brightness, when he came buried deep in Fei Long’s throat.


	13. Sudou

“You have to calm down!”, Sakazaki said, his voice a screeching through the din in his head. The man sat on the bed, leaning forward onto his knees, staring at the door, seemingly unmoved, while Sudou clung to the sheets. If it was so easy to calm down! If he could just quiet the ruckus ringing in his ears, banging against the insides of his scull like someone shook a brass kettle full of coins, like a group of children smashing cymbals to drown out each other.

He felt the tears on his cheeks burning hot, felt his saliva wet the linen while he hissed into them, pushing his breath out of his nose to keep his head from bursting.

“Drink something”, the other tuned. He got up and came back with a glass of water. Sudou reached for it, his fingers trembling his vision full of flickering red lights, white bolts and black blotches. He downed the coolness with one large gulp and Sakasaki went right away to get a second.

To that Sudou held on, clutching it with both hands, leaning half on the bed, half kneeling in front, taking small sips at a time. He still wasn’t sure what had just happened.

Weeks before he had been brought here unconsciously, had someday woken up and needed a long while to finally understand where he was and with whom – and that he was alive. Elisov had taken them in, had promised to hide them, to allow them as his guest until everything was sorted out. What that meant he had never divulged to them. The only hints they had, were those Sakazaki had picked up while he had been with Chernobog, fleeing Macau. Elisov was furious about the chaos they had left behind, about the evidence he needed to get rid of without anyone noticing that he had had a hand in any of that. Before anyone just dared to believe that he might ever once have had a thought about some warehouse in Macau.

Apart from that he would have to act now, had been the word, because Chernobog had dragged him into a war against three enemies at the same time. And to Sudou _that_ had sounded better than any other promise, than any hope so far. Elisov would crush them all: Arbatov, Baishe and Asami!

That way the failure at the warehouse would be corrected. Sudou had called them there so that they would just kill each other off. His enemies, anyone who had ever looked down upon him, anybody who had threatened him, should have died there. But instead, they had walked out of there – all except for Yuri.

Mikhail was alive and the Chinese cunt he had brought with him! And Asami was alive. Him and that rat! They couldn’t be allowed! The lightning fired his brain up again, he squeezed his eyes shut, panted heavily and emptied the second glass of water.

But those hopes had been crushed now. It didn’t seem like Elisov was going to war anymore. It all had changed with one visitor the day before.

“What now?”, he hissed at the other man who still sat there, hardly ever moving, seemingly unshaken.

Elisov had just told them that they would be taken to one of his hotels in the afternoon. It was a 5-star-resort, and they would want for nothing there, he had promised, telling them that it might be safer for them to stick to their suite and use the room service. On Sunday he would come and see them. He would let them know what was to happen from now on.

Sudou had yelled at him that he couldn’t wait that long and had been reprimanded from that cold bastard to mind his manners in front of his host. If only he could have thrown himself at the other man’s throat to tear it open with his teeth, he would have done so.

Sunday it would be, because on Saturday he would attend an important meeting, which would determine his future course.

He was a master of fancy words that never meant much at all. It seemed to Sudou like he had learned the Oxford Dictionary by heart to throw rare idioms and metaphorical phrases at others whose English was not as brilliant.

“What now?”, he forced out again between his clenched teeth, allowing himself to slowly slip from the bed and huddling up against it.

Sakazaki shrugged snugly. “We go to that hotel. We settle in there. Then we call some friends and ask how they are doing.”

He spoke very quietly and as Sudou looked up at him there was a faint, devious smile showing on his face.

The hotel they were taken to was built on the eastern shore of the vast island and very much resembled the layout of ancient Chinese palaces. Their suite offered two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large central living room and a giant balcony which overlooked the gardens and the near beach. They ruffled the bedsheets, used some of the toiletries, left some clothes in the closets and took some drinks from the minibar – just as if they really lived there. So that if anybody was sent to look, it would seem like they might just have left for a walk. After all, Elisov had only recommended them to stay in their room – for whatever reason – but he had not forbidden them to leave it.

Then they hung the ‘ _Do not disturb’_ -sign onto the door and left.

Two hours later the taxi which they had ordered from a different hotel nearby stopped at the side of the road just in front of some small town somewhere in a world that seemed to consist of nothing but orange trees. Over hills and in valleys as far as the eye could see there were those dark green trees with their golden fruits, waiting to be harvested any time now. It was a really pretty and peaceful sight with the azure sky stretching above the endless sea of green, Sudou though – if only there would be anybody with half a mind to enjoy it.

The taxi driver turned around to the men in the back, asking them something, but he spoke only Chinese and they didn’t understand. They had just been able to tell him where to go by showing him a text message explaining the way. That he had followed and had brought them here. Now he looked around in irritation, no less than they did.

With a bang that made everybody jump the door next to the passenger seat was opened and a man got in, wearing sunglasses, green clothes and gloves. He must have come out of the bushes growing so close to the road. Snarling at the driver in Chinese, he pulled a gun, and the other man turned the motor back on whimpering. Even without understanding a word, Sudou knew that he was begging not to be shot, while he adhered to the orders obediently. They followed the street for nearly twenty minutes, then turned into a path that might once have been a frequently used road as well. It wound itself between the orchards of orange trees which looked wild and neglected here. Weed and flowers where blooming everywhere and had started to grow onto the road.

The drive ended at a group of large halls and smaller buildings, where ten grey trucks were parked, and sinister looking men looked up at the approaching car. The driver now started to cry, trying to find some words in English to get help from the two Japanese in the rear. But _they_ didn’t care.

When they stopped, the guy was torn from the car by two men, dragged behind one of the buildings and a shot rang a second later. Taking the key with him, the man from the passenger seat got out.

“I think that’s their way of saying welcome”, Sakazaki grinned bitterly. He didn’t make any move to exit, just watched the men gathering around, and so did Sudou, searching for a familiar visage. But he had only ever talked to Yuri and Aaron. All the other men of Chernobog were faceless men to him. He had only just decided to at least unbuckle his belt, when the door was ripped open and someone seized him by the arm. He was hurled out of the car, falling to his knees and it felt like the wound on his thigh where he had been shot by that rat Asami took to bed had ripped open again. A scream of agony rang from his lungs and his eyes squeezed shut when the pain echoed up into his brain, setting it aflame one again.

Merciless he was still yanked up to his feet and pushed against the car. When he could finally open his eyes, he was staring into the face of Aaron, just inches away, his scar a white line in his angry face.

“Give me one reason, why I should not just kill you!”, the Russian spat in his face, grabbing him with both hands at the front of his shirt, nearly lifting him off the ground.

Sudou wanted to speak, but his lips didn’t move. The pain made his teeth grind into each other and he was just glad that his tongue hadn’t been in between when they had flung shut.

“For the same reason as before”, Sakazaki answered instead, now not as calm anymore with a gun pointing to his head. Then an elbow smacked him on the cheek. He tumbled against the car, his glasses falling down and splintering on the ground, but he kept his hands raised as to signal his surrender.

“You didn’t kill him because of the intel he can give you”, he continued gritting his teeth while speaking and snorting out once. “He still can. Nothing of that has changed. I think you now need it more than ever.”

Aaron leered at him, holding onto Sudou so fiercely he could hardly breath. Where the pain was very slowly subsiding, the throbbing hurt of too little air replaced it. He could hardly open his eyes to squint at the other whose eyes seemed red with rage.

“Do we?”, Aaron snarled, dragging his voice.

“He’s giving you up?”, Sudou shrieked. “Isn’t he?”

Only in the taxi where no one was understanding them and no one could listen in, had Sakazaki started to speak. The sly bastard, Sudou had called him. The man had played him, he had known that. He had sold the information about Sudou’s coup with Chernobog to both Mikhail Arbatov and the press. Then he had tricked the man send to liquidate Sudou, he had sneaked from Mikhail’s view, had scared Asami’s rat out of hiding. In one way or another he had played them all and all he had gotten from it until now was a pair of broken glasses.

But he had been right, once again!

Aaron slammed him against the car again, then suddenly let him go. Sudou cried in pain but grind his teeth against it, keeping himself from sliding down to the ground, slowly lifting himself up again.

“Elisov sent you here to wait. He sent us away to wait as well. He had a visitor. Fei Long came to see him. They talked. And now he has made up his mind. He’s letting you fall. And us as well.”

The Russian’s eyes regarded his men around with a sinister expression. His grey eyes gleamed dark even in the bright sunlight. A hush had fallen, disturbed only by the birds and insects enjoying the rampant wilderness pushing against the boundaries of the old plantation. What was left of Chernobog didn’t amount up to 40 men, but they wore weapons and determination on their faces. They still looked like an army.

“What did that cunt want?”, Aaron growled finally.

“We don’t know”, Sakazaki took to answer. He had picked himself up and had dared to lower his hands to brush some dirt from his pants. “We asked but of course he didn’t say. Business matters.”

“He’ll want to get rid of Asami!”, Sudou barked in between, but his voice hurt in his head. He had to speak quieter to not make the pain return. “He will have found out about Elisov and Chernobog. He’ll want to get rid of Asami with Elisov’s help.”

Sakazaki clicked his tongue dismissively at that. “We don’t know that”, he weighed in, tugging one side of his mouth into a strange little smile.

“Maybe they have just decided to be friends. If Elisov went against all three of them, Asami, Baishe and Arbatov he would need more than…”, for a second he hesitated, but then he raised his hands and pointed around. “More than _this_. Maybe he understood that he doesn’t stand a chance. Or he got a good deal.”

Sudou hissed at that. He felt like he needed to bite someone again. Like the pain and the pressure in his head would finally be gone forever if he could sink his teeth into someone’s throat.

“Whatever it is”, the taller Japanese finally trilled on with infinite satisfaction, “our dear Viktor as a butler who is a bit slow by now. And who has served too long in a friendly, nice environment. He keeps forgetting things and locking doors. That way I could take a peek at the guestlist for his grand-hotel-opening on Saturday. There are three names on there. One printed in, two added by hand: Liu Fei Long, Asami Ryuichi and Mikhail Arbatov.”


	14. Asami

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (To those who do not know this, the novel "Finder no Souen" contains the prologue to the novel "Finder no Rakuin". In there, Fei Long receives an email from Akihito via mobile phone about some trivialities of his everyday life. You learn that Akihito writes often, but only about trifles and never mentioning Asami, while Fei Long seems to answer rather shortly and rarely.
> 
> Thanks to LisuliaH for translating that bit!!)

The place Fei Long had chosen as a base was a small hotel in Sanya, one of the few larger cities on Hainan Island. When it had been in use it had hardly amounted to anything more than 3-stars, and might have only made up for that due to its proximity to the sheer endless beach of the Sanya Bay. About two years ago the last tenant had decided to renovate it but had run into a financial disaster halfway through leaving one third of the building in its old apparition, one third in modern, unused glamor and the last third stripped down to the concrete and full of construction dust. Now suddenly the place had been leased by a small Hong Kong firm, which was in fact a front company of Fei Long’s, and this new tenant had taken up renovations right away.

Within a day an armada of vans had been swallowed by the underground car park and the windows had all been taped with sheets of paper from the inside, perhaps – the neighbors thought – not to damage the glass or spray it with color. Yet not a single craftsman sat in any of those cars and not one of them carried with him a drill, an inch rule or a bucket of paint.

Asami arrived on Friday afternoon, finding the car park already halfway filled with old trucks showing names of fake construction companies. They were greeted at the entrance to the hotel by two Baishe men, who just waved them through, as Asami, followed by about fifteen men carrying equipment, entered. They were sent up to the 2nd floor right away where in what had once probably been some kind of conference room, they found the rest of Baishe.

About twenty men were discussing maps and blueprints and checking their gear, with Yoh in the midst of them.

Asami stepped up to the man who had once worked for him.

“No Arbatov?”, he asked.

“He said, he’ll be late”, Yoh answered factually as always, putting away the M4 carabine, he had just loaded. From the equipment Baishe had laid out on two large tables it looked very much as if they were planning to go to war, and Asami knew that his own contribution would only increase this effect. So much for trying to play it friendly!

“Doesn’t look as if Fei Long is so sure his plan will succeed after all”, Asami heard himself snarl. In the last days he had found himself hope that it would. Even though he had been irritated about being left in the dark about whatever deal Fei Long had made with Viktor Elisov, the idea of a quick and quiet end to all of this chaos had had some appeal to him. And even more to Akihito, who he knew that now once again sat in a darkened room on a beautiful small island, seeking the solitude to dwell in his worry at what might be happening about 1300 miles away to the west on a likewise sunny spot of the earth.

The Chinese looked up the slightly taller Japanese, shrugging faintly. “Too many players, too many rotten eggs perhaps.”

“Yeah. And it’s always the Russians”, Asami added. He felt irritated about Mikhail’s involvement in all of this. Sure, the whole mess had been started by Sudou running wild, but not only had Mikhail had his fair share in expanding it, he was also the kind of person who enjoyed the havoc he sowed. On the other hand, he indeed scored without any doubt very high on Chernobog’s list of enemies.

Viktor Elisov and his private army were certainly their common foe, but once they had been dealt with Mikhail Arbatov was still the opposition. But so was Fei Long…

Regarding the assembly of guns and carabines, rifles and machine pistols, of bulletproof vests and helmets and grenades, he remembered them sitting in the empty casino of that luxurious cruise ship some months back.

“I’m curious… how do things sit between you now? I only want to know because if the two of you team up, I’d be at a disadvantage”, Mikhail had asked, phrasing his claim ambiguously certainly not by accident. Instead of his actual answer back then, Asami had as well have told the Russian to get a room for him and Fei Long if he wanted to hit on him, and the Chinese had been furious and irritated.

But the secondary meaning had been true as well: A collaboration between Asami and Baishe couldn’t be in Mikhail’s interest. There were already too few forces able to stand their ground in competition to the vast and powerful Hong Kong triad, yet one of them teaming up with them would tip the balance severely.

 _‘And now?’_ , Asami mused. Had the tide turned? Was he the one worried now about Baishe and the Arbatov bratva joining forces, which would be a serious handicap for his own businesses, that had been floundering anyway since Chernobog had dragged him to war? Though, was there even a reason to wonder about all this? Whenever he had seen both men together there had been no exchanges of friendliness or comradery, and Fei Long sitting in that car skidding to a halt in the Macau warehouse might have been – as Mikhail had put it – just the result of some coincidences.

As of yet it was a mere hunch actually, but then again, they often enough hadn’t betrayed him. However, if he was right, then wouldn’t he have to wonder as well if it wasn’t the secondary meaning that was bugging him, but the first instead? The idea that Mikhail had somehow made his way into the well-hidden, locked off heart of the dragon of Baishe.

“Where is he?”, he jerked out of his silence.

“Top floor. There’s a room straight ahead that was supposed to be a business lounge or something”, Yoh answered as usually, face and voice barren of any emotion.

The top floor was indeed only the seventh, around which most of the neighboring buildings towered above. Leaving the elevator Asami didn’t have to search. For one, as the door to the room in question was indeed directly opposite to the lift, and secondly, he heard Fei Long’s voice right away.

Stopping in the doorway, he looked about. The room was equipped with two small workplaces with older PCs and printers, and with several couches which were bad copies of the Corbusier design classic. Over all of that had been drawn large transparent foils that were supposed to keep the dust away from the furniture and had gathered it instead.

Fei Long stood in front of a large, opened window out of which through a narrow gap between the opposite buildings a small stretch of beach and sea could be seen. The late afternoon sun had just sunk into that canyon, tinting the sides of the buildings golden as well as the silhouette of the Chinese.

He had turned his back to Asami, talking in Cantonese to whoever was on the other end of the phone he held to his ear. It didn’t take the Japanese long to guess.

“I know”, Fei Long answered after a little pause of listening. “I will call you tomorrow before we leave. Don’t stay up too long… Yes… You know I’ll know.”

He chuckled shortly, then said goodbye and hung up. After that he just stood there, looking out of the window into the distance. It was odd to see a human being become so still. It seemed very much like time itself split to pass him by and Asami felt the need to stop it. He tapped his knuckles against the doorframe.

Fei Long turned around without a start.

“Good evening” he said. “Have you been there long?”

“Long enough to hear you tell that brat to go to bed early”, Asami answered walking into the room, passing the Chinese and leaning down on the window sill.

“He’s king of the castle now. He’ll watch movies, and jump and run through the rooms all night long.”

“Watching tv, playing games, listening to music, isn’t that what all kids do when they’re supposed to be in bed and sleep?”, Asami asked. He leaned a bit forward, looking down the side of the building. He could see the street below and the entrance to the car park.

“ _I_ didn’t. We didn’t have a tv. If I wanted to stay up late it was for reading.”

“Benefits of a classical education”, the Japanese retorted, knowing that it sounded sarcastically. Remembering the castle-like mansion Fei Long had grown up in he could very well imagine how there hadn’t been any forms of modern entertainment but a giant library and a vast collection of classical music. It was no wonder the Chinese had hardly any sense of humor.

“That kid will be alright”, he found himself assure then.

“He doesn’t like you”, Fei Long proclaimed looking up at Asami with a glare, half reproachful, half mocking.

“Smart boy,” was his answer. Then he took out his phone. “By the way, I am supposed to tell you something, and I quote: _‘Tell him not to not answer messages and calls for hours. People will worry. Especially Tao. It is unfair. Tell him to keep save_ ’.”

He had read out loud what Akihito had written him. Now he put the phone away and lit a cigarette instead, exhaling the smoking out of the window.

Fei Long didn’t answer for a moment and when he finally did, he stepped closer, leaning against the window frame.

“How is he?”

“Furious I left him on an island. He feels discarded and neglected and not taken seriously.”

The Chinese shook his head slowly. “You did the only sensible.”

“He doesn’t see it that way.”

“Yes, because he is a fighter. He wants to fight and to protect the one he loves. But even heroes need to rest at some point.”

Asami forced a quite “mh!” out of his throat in answer. He turned his head away from Fei Long, towards the south where there as well could be seen a tiny, small edge of the blue sea. He couldn’t keep a smile from his face and didn’t want the other to see – even if he probably knew anyway…

Somehow, they knew each other too well.

“Tell him, I’ll keep that in mind”, Fei Long added after a few seconds.

“You can tell him yourself”, Asami answered back, turning his gaze to the north and towards the other with an empty expression now, as if to prove that there was indeed nothing happening on his face. “When this is hopefully over in 48hours max, then I’ll give him back his _own_ phone and you can go back to exchanging trivial little messages like you did before.”

“Did that bug you?”, Fei Long asked and now there was that faint little mischievous smile tugging at his lips that Asami had seen on him before. When it came to Akihito the Chinese seemed to enjoy pulling the other’s strings quite a bit.

“No, I don’t mind. It’s mostly nonsense anyway. You haven’t been chatting about _me_ so there’s no harm.”

“Please!”, Fei Long exclaimed, the smile growing bolder. “It’s not like you’re _that_ interesting!”

But after that, silence sank and the smile slowly vanished.

It was Asami who spoke first. “It looks like you’re preparing for war downstairs after all.”

“I’m just cautious. We should be.”

“Yeah”, was the Japanese’s verdict. He took a last draw from his cigarette then tossed it out of the window.

“Ah”, the other suddenly said. “I have met your Mr. Sudou. Your nemesis.”

Asami laughed out loud to that. That brat was a pain in the ass which had managed to stir up quite some chaos by his complete lack of rationalism. Yet he wasn’t anything more than that. What he had caused, was the problem. Not the man himself. He wasn’t worthy of that title.

“He isn’t my nemesis”, he declared, staring off into the west where very slowly the sun sank towards the sea. “If anybody is, then it’s _you_.”

“If I was your nemesis, you would be dead”, Fei Long declared in protest.

“Well, that’s not for lack of trying”, Asami contradicted, still grinning, but when he looked back at the other that faded quickly.

“If I had _really wanted_ you dead, you _would_ be _dead._ ”

Now all that was left was a little smile. A bit ironic it felt to him, but not completely. There was also the admission of knowing this was the truth tugging on his lips.

“I know”, he whispered, holding the gaze of those amethyst eyes for a few seconds, until the other man looked away.

Down on the street there was a group of red vans turning into the slope leading down to the underground car park now.

“Here comes the cavalry”, Asami said, lifting himself up from the windowsill. “Do you trust him?”, he heard himself ask when he had actually just decided to let it slip.

Fei Long looked up at him again, obviously understanding that he was referring to Mikhail. His eyes showed no doubt at all now. “As much as I trust you”, he answered.


	15. Mikhail

“Up seventh floor. With Asami”, Yoh had told him, when Mikhail asked for Fei Long. To his own surprise he didn’t feel the slightest tinge of jealousy now. Not even when he happened upon the Japanese as he left the elevator upstairs. Asami had obviously been waiting there to go back down.

“Hi”, Mikhail said, nonchalantly, receiving a low growl in return which perhaps meant _‘good evening’_.

He watched as the doors of the lift closed, as the numbers in the display overhead started to count down to 1. Then he turned around walking straight into the business lounge. Fei Long seemed to have heard his steps, for he leaned backwards against the windowsill, watching him.

“Everything set?”, Mikhail asked when entering, looking around, checking if there was anybody else.

“Asami’s men are settling in. There are inhabitable rooms on the third and fourth floor. The rest however is a mess. It will be enough for those two nights. We’ll do a briefing tomorrow morning.”

He talked rather factually, while watching Mikhail close the door to the room and advance.

The evening sun was gleaming through a canyon in between the towering buildings around and made the Chinese’s hair glow.

“Do you…”, he started to ask something, but Mikhail grabbed his chin and forced his lips onto the other’s. Fei Long struggled for a moment but then allowed the assaulting tongue in. His hands grabbed the black leather jacket of the Russian as if he wanted to tear it apart, while Mikhail still held him tight, pushing the fingers of his free hand underneath the other’s linen shirt, searching for a nipple and pinching it hard. Fei Long moaned into his mouth, what made Mikhail laugh back, but then the hands pushed against the jacket instead of pulling it and finally the Chinese freed himself.

“Not _here_!”, he panted heavily. “Not these days.”

“That will be a hard fight for me”, Mikhail objected, leaning in again, pushing his forehead against the other’s, trailing his hands firmly down the lean, muscled body next to him.

“Stop!”, Fei Long ordered pushing him again with even more force. Mikhail stumbled backwards, raising his hands in submission.

“Ok, ok! But you’ll have to make it up to me”, he demanded.

The dangerously narrowed eyes of the dragon of Baishe met his own, but then he got the promised that his request would be fulfilled. In a few days…

The following night was a restless one. There was so much hope on the one hand, that all this mess would end within a day, with just four men talking and having a drink over it. There was also, however, Murphy’s law claiming that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It kept Mikhail awake through most of the late hours and early into the morning. That – and the knowledge that Fei Long was sleeping only a few rooms away and still out of reach. With him by his side, Mikhail was sure he would have found sleep. Feeling the other _there_ , listening to his breathing, smelling his scent, watching him rest, would have calmed his nerves, he was sure. The distance however seemed only to add into his edginess.

When he finally fell asleep it was morning already and he got up from movements in the corridor and in the neighboring rooms less than two hours later.

The breakfast was just as bleak. He sat with his men in one corner of what had once been the hotel’s restaurant, staring off into nothingness, seemingly in thought. But actually, he wasn’t thinking of anything.

Shortly before noon finally everyone gathered in the conference room on the second floor around four tables that had been pushed together to form a giant one. On there lay several maps and blueprints, and enlarged photographs showing the advertising for a new hotel.

It was Yoh who started the briefing, speaking in English so that everyone would understand him. “These are the official plans of the architect. Blueprints as well as those published when they started to advertise for this hotel when they started building. There is however no telling if there had been made any changes. It is possible. We tried to get the updated floor plans which have been used to get clearing in terms of fire protection for the building, but they are stuck in some government office.”

He paused for a moment, while people leaned in to have a closer look at the detailed prints. It was a strange assortment of men, most of them black haired and with Asian features, with only a few in between of an obviously different ethnic background. All of them however were geared up including bulletproof suits and weapons – except for Mikhail, Fei Long and Asami.

“These pictures are of the brochure and webpage of the hotel used for advertisement, so they are likely somewhat edited, but most fits well with the blueprints. Finally, we have this detailed photo of the grounds from overhead.”

The picture looked very much like the satellite shots used in web-search engines as an overlay for their maps. One could see clearly the private beach belonging to the hotel and the cliffs to both sides, the vast park and small forests around the compound as well as the thick and high wall framing all of that. There was one wide road leading to a small roundabout in front of the entrance hall as well as to a parking space a little off and out of sight from the main building and guestrooms facing inland. Other, narrower roads very likely were used for deliveries and logistics, and some white paths meandered all about for leisure strolls or jogging.

The hotel itself looked very much inspired by the Buddhist temples of Japan, like the Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto or the Maniden of the Engyou-ji on Mount Shosha. From the entrance hall it looked like an only two story tall, large main hall, with two wings protruding to each side, all constructed from dark wood with many columns and lintels, and a gently curve roof. While that main hall from the outside kept its traditionally inspired appearance, the wings were equipped with modern windows and paneled lightning where some guestrooms and bureaus had a balcony. On the other side of the central building however one found what had seemed to be the first floor to be protruding three storeys above ground. On that side broad balconies overlooked the beach in the distance and the park underneath and several giant spiral stairs led down, with the modern elevators that would have disrupted the homogenous style hidden inside the building.

On the ground the white paths started again winding their way alongside artificial streams of water and over bridges in midst of the lush botany. Then they spread around the pools which themselves looked like a landscape of small creeks and waterfalls and islands and lakes, until all of that ended where the beach began.

It was a beautiful place from all the pictures and advertising, and from the overhead photograph, and Mikhail hoped that it would stay that way. A look at the men around however, who were all used to violence, did not make him feel reassured.

After that Asami’s man Kirishima took the word as him and some of his folks had taken the day to have a look at the area around the hotel. He produced some more maps, indeed mostly satellite shots now, showing the streets leading through the mountains nearby towards the Yalong peninsular, the one road which was the official way towards the newly erected hotel compound and the smaller paths and lanes through the forests around.

“There are two narrow slopes down the cliffs towards the beach, which can be used as an escape route. They have been checked by us, but they are steep and only on the one to the east will a car be able to maneuver. So, there will be one van waiting, once you get into the building”, Kirishima explained, leaning onto the table and pointing his words out on the maps at the same time.

“There is also one small clearing in the forest west of the bay which has been used by tourists and local residents to park their cars to access the beach before it became private grounds. We will have cars waiting there. The rest of the cars will have to hide away on some of the forest roads in the vicinity. This mean that they’ll take up to 10 minutes to get down only to the main gate of the compound. Drivers will be standing by on radio all the time. The rest of us will be _here_ ,” he put his finger onto a very detailed shot of the forests north of the main gate and the street leading there, where in midst of deep green jungle some reddish rocks could be seen protruding. “This is a small cliff overlooking the road and the main gate. Whoever approaches from the land, we will see them from there and will be able to engage quickly.”

“What about the water?”, one of Mikhail’s men asked with a thick Russian accent.

Kirishima nodded towards him. “The water is rather shallow. With small boats one could reach the beach, but there is no landing stage or mooring. And they would be spotted from the drivers standing by on the slope up from the beach and the ones in the clearing. So, we should know soon enough.”

Mikhail found himself nodding at some point, listening to further details planned for the evening. At least, he thought, it seemed like they had prepared as well as they could have.

After the briefing it was time to get the last rest of the day, then for the three men whose names were given on the guestlist to get dressed.

When Mikhail returned to the conference room both Asami and Fei Long were already there. The Japanese was talking on the phone in his native language, so the Russian didn’t understand, yet the way the man had muted his voice, made it seem likely that he spoke to that kid Akihito. He wore a black 3-piece-suit not unlike Mikhail, only that instead of a black shirt and silver tie the Japanese had chosen a white shirt and black tie. Fei Long was _all_ in black, trousers, shirt and jacket, only that he hadn’t donned a traditional suit’s coat but a tang jacket with arabesques embroidered on it with a dark blue, shimmering threat, and had tied a fine, midnight-colored silk-scarf around his collar.

In the inner pocket of the jacket, Yoh was now hiding a small microphone and in-ear phone, leaning into Fei Long so closely that their cheeks almost touched, and Mikhail had to look away - less from jealousy than from the need firing up inside him, to touch the Chinese beauty himself.

Soon he found himself equipped likewise. They would not be able to put in the earphones right away, as Elisov might not be happy getting the impression that they were planning something. Yet via the microphones their men standing by would be able to listen in, and once need arose, the three of them would be able to switch the earphones on and use them as well. Hopefully, that didn’t happen!

At half past seven he found himself in the underground car park waiting for the anthracite Cadillac Escalade that would take them for the about 50 minutes ride to their goal. Most of the other vans had already left, heading for their respective hiding points, disposing of their passengers along the last miles of the way. The grand opening of the hotel had started officially at 6pm, but they didn’t want to be punctual. They wanted to allow Viktor Elisov to greet his other guests appropriately.

Once the car was there, Mikhail got in first, taking one of the seats in the rear looking towards the front, with Asami swooping in and occupying the seat next to him. That left the one turned with the back to the driver to Fei Long – the one where there definitely was no way of even reaching for the other with the pinky of his finger… but probably the Chinese wouldn’t have been happy about that anyway. These hours he had been rather cold, erecting back that impenetrable exterior of the dragon of Baishe. But that didn’t keep Mikhail from staring at his face for most of the drive, while both other men seemed caught up in thoughts of their own.

For the longest journey they were alone on the road with only the constant low growl of the car around them and the dim light of the interior hiding away the darkness of the world outside. Now and then, there were some voices talking in the radio which the Baishe man in the passenger seat held firmly in his grasp, listening in to any small detail. But up until now everything had gone smoothly.

Then they reached the front gate of the hotel’s ground, which was illuminated by golden lampions. They gave their names to the security personnel dressed in uniforms inspired by traditional Han closing including the diagonal body wrapping of the jackets and Zhanchi Putou hats. The gate was opened to them and the car rolled on.


	16. Aaron

Darkness had fallen outside, tinting all that had been green and orange and shimmering gold beneath the sun burning down from the wide blue sky colorless. Out here there was no light pollution, so the night was a sinister one with a million stars up above.

Aaron set alone in one of the sheds of the plantation, allowing the shadows to creep up on him, permitting his mind to be filled with visions of the future and the past. He liked to go to war well prepared, imagining his foes – their strengths, their weaknesses – and what he would do to them once he held them in his grasp.

Often enough he needed to be a pragmatist. Killing quickly, with one shot at best, disposing of any threat with one steady hand.

And his hand was still quick to raise the gun, perfect in aiming. Just releasing the bullets might take half a second longer now with the injury of his arm. In the end, it would very likely not matter, for he would still be faster than most. And he would hit them right between the eyes.

But _if_ he had time. _If_ he got them into his grasp and would have time with them, he would put it to good use.

In reminiscence of Yuri he would flog Mikhail until the man begged him for mercy. And then he would shoot him in the guts and leave him to die. If he got his hands on that Chinese bastard, who had not cried out once to his torture on the cargo ship, then he would forget his principles for once. He would rape him and would make him cry, and he would let the Russian watch. After all Mikhail had come willingly with Yuri to save that cunt. He would fuck him and then strangle the life out of him, and Mikhail would witness it all. If he got Asami and that toy of his, he would tear the boy to shreds, bit by bit, leaving him to rot in that cell into which he had put the man. And when he didn’t want to keep him anymore, he would feed Asami to some hungry dogs.

It was all an exaggeration. He was a professional in the end. He did not go for fancy murder. A tiny bit of torture, if he had the time. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?

Well, where there was life, there was hope. And the evening seemed to be promising.

He got up from his chair, checked his vest, his guns, his ammunition and grenades. Then he left the shed, walking outside into the midst of his men, onto whom only the stars dared to look down upon.

Chernobog could be so much more… and they would be! Once they had gotten rid of the one who still believing he held them by the leash, and the three men who had stood in their way.


	17. Viktor

He shook hands, he patted shoulders, he kissed cheeks, he smiled, and he toasted and held his speech as he had planned while sheer thousands of lampions illuminated the entrance hall and lobby, the ballroom and bar, the balconies towering beyond the parc and the stairs spiraling down there. The whole interior of the hotel seemed filled with golden light, that warmed smiles and beautified faces.

On each of the floors there were bronze buddha statues and giant vases resembling Japanese antique ceramics, there were bonsai as old as a hundred years and islands of bamboo so tall they reached up to the ceiling built out of dark wood. In between all that temperate décor his guests seemed rather out of time and place, with their dazzling dresses and suits, but they enjoyed it nonetheless, sipping on Champagne or cocktails, waltzing up and down through the central area of the hotel, where all doors onto the balconies had been opened wide. They marveled at the torches that lit the paths and streams of water and pools down in the parc as well as the way down to the beach, and rejoiced when they stepped onto the platform to which the balcony on the main floor led. It protruded above a steep cliff – one small portion of the natural formation of rocks that had been spared from destruction to make way for the building. From beneath the planks of the platform water was rushing over the edge of the stones, pouring down into one of the artificial streams which still looked very natural apart from the dark blue lighting illuminating it from below.

It was a fine evening in any regard, Viktor thought, deciding that he would keep that state of mind. Tomorrow he would have to deal with problems certainly emerging, but he had plans for that already. There was no need to give any speeches to Chernobog, no necessity to explain anything to them. They just had to vanish. And he would make them, in one quick blow. What traces would remain of them would never be followed to the man Viktor Elisov, and they would be found by Chinese authorities to have been behind some gang fight destroying a warehouse in Macau weeks before because of a drug deal gone awry.

Sudou and that other Japanese, he would leave to Baishe, and whether the men’s requests for compensation would ever be fulfilled would not be his to care about anymore.

He would be freed of all this within one night and one short determined blow the next day.

Fyodor, his bodyguard rescued him from a discussion with an elderly, rich couple from Peking that wanted Viktor’s support to build a new opera hall in Sanya. He excused himself politely, kissing the hand of the lady and promising to return to give their wonderful idea all attention it deserved.

Then he followed his best man up the stairs back into the entrance hall of his hotel and found the three guests he had longed for waiting there. All three of them had clothed appropriately for the occasion, just like himself who wore a royal blue suit and golden fly. He greeted them with a handshake thought that was uncommon for the native culture of two of them, then asked them to follow him.

Once they had managed to wriggle their way through the crowd of guests, of which many called for their host’s attention and were politely denied, they reached a corridor that lay in silence, guarded by two of Viktor’s men who looked very much like servants, but carried guns indeed.

“You’re bringing your friend?”, the Japanese asked with his low baritone voice, stopping once the doors had closed behind them, eyeing Fyodor who was just as tall, just as broad and likewise well dressed.

Viktor smiled to that and offered a small bow. “Well, there are three of you. And I am alone. You might grand me the comfort of bringing _one_ friend?”, he took care his tune didn’t sound mocking or aggressive.

Ryuichi Asami exchanged one look with the Chinese, who nodded slightly – not with the Russian, however.

The room they entered was a bar, library and smoking lounge that would be opened only to the most cherished guests. In there they seemed to have suddenly jumped into a mansion of the American colonial era, for the room was all clad in American walnut from the parquet floor to the paneled walls framing the bookshelves and the frames of the large windows up to the deeply coffered ceiling. Only the fireplace and the tabletop of the bar had been built out of black marble. Dark red leather wing chairs offered comfort as well as a row of barstools.

Viktor however advanced the giant English writing desk set into the rear of the room in front of the windows, and leaned against it. When he had been here in those weeks past, he had enjoyed using this room as his personal office, working on this old table which weighed as much as an ox, with the most modern generation of a MacBook. That equipment had gone now but the golden fountain pen holder with its square, shiny marble base and calligraphy pen was still there as much as a stack of handmade paper, the silver can of ink, the banker’s lamp and antique phone which was just for decoration.

With his hands in his pockets the blonde Russian seemed to have the least interest in the room surrounding him. His eyes followed Fyodor who had stepped behind the counter of the bar and produced four glasses. The Japanese had at least taken some interest in the marvelous ceiling spreading over their heads, while the Chinese took a closer look at the books in those shelves. They were all leather-bound copies of world-renowned literature, but Viktor knew that there were no gems between them. They were all reprints.

“I’ll do _that_ ”, it was the Japanese again who spoke first, moving behind the bar as well. Fyodor looked up to his boss and Viktor nodded benignly. If his guests wanted to be suspicious of his any move, he would play along. He just wanted this to be over.

Asami took four other glasses, raising each of them towards the nearest lamp and obviously not finding anything to his dissatisfaction. He placed them on the marble countertop in one perfect line. “Any recommendations?”, he then asked Viktor.

There was a large collection of Gins and Bourbons and Whiskeys, of Liquors and Vodkas and Brandys, while the Champagnes and wines were kept below in fridges cooling them to their best tastes.

“Bourbon?”, Viktor asked his guests around, receiving nods from both the Chinese and the Russian. “There is a 16-year-old Black Maple Hill Bourbon on the top shelf center”, he suggested, raising one hand to show the Japanese the direction. The man found the bottle, but then paused for a moment before he took down the 12-year-old Yellowstone Limited Kentucky Straight next to it. He poured into the four glasses, then came back from behind the bar handing them out to everyone except Fyodor.

The man never drank anyway. Instead, he returned to the door of the room, leaning against the wall there, looking as if he was hardly interested in anything happening now.

“Well…”, Viktor raised his glass, when the other men had gathered around. He was still eager to keep his positive attitude but right now it seemed to try to slip from his grasp.

“Gentlemen, I had prepared a speech for tonight, but I fear it was for an altogether different occasion and I fear all my powder has been shot. After all, I guess I’m the loser in this intermezzo anyway.”

“We wouldn’t know”, Asami answered dryly. “We were not told of whatever deal the two of you agreed upon.”

“And that is as it should be”, the host declared raising his eyebrows in confirmation. He smiled at the Chinese whose eyes lit up dangerously for a moment, then looked away.

“But you have been told that you will need to find an agreement with Misters Sudou and Sakazaki yourself?”, he turned back towards the Japanese.

“I have”, was the short and factual answer. The man’s eyes had very much the same color as the Bourbon in their glasses.

“Well then…”, Viktor began again, raising his glass with a sigh of resignation, “…to wars ended and hatchets buried, and enemies soothed. To new beginnings with a clear conscience!”

His three guests returned the toast, sipping on the Bourbon which was indeed exquisite.

It was then that there was a shot. It made all of them pause, including Fyodor, who froze looking towards the four people inside the room while obviously harking to what was happening elsewhere. Seconds later there could clearly be heard the burst of a machine gun followed by screams echoing down the corridor and surging against the heavy door.

Viktor had already put down his glass on the table, his mind turning from positivity to alert within milliseconds. He took out the gun he always carried, raised it and the click of the safety catch startled his three guests.

Mikhail Arbatov was the first to turn around, his exclamation of “Don’t!” proceeded by a gasp of horror. When Ryuichi Asami turned, he very slowly raised his hands, spreading his fingers as wide as he could without letting go of the glass to proof his innocence.

“This is not our doing”, he spoke slowly and clearly.

Only Fei Long Liu did not move due to the cold burn of the muzzle pressed against his throat.


	18. Mikhail

“A shot to the head at this distance is so unspeakably ultimate and leaves _so_ much of a mess. To the throat however, it makes the caring ones try to stop the flood of blood with their own hands while they see the life vanish from that beautiful face”, Viktor Elisov mused in a hushed, measured voice. His blue eyes were sparkling now though they hadn’t before. If this was _his_ doing, he was certainly enjoying it. If it wasn’t, then it seemed to have sent some new life to his body.

“We don’t have anything to do with this”, Fei Long spoke in barely more than a whisper. He hadn’t turned towards the man pressing a SIG Sauer P232 SL to his throat, just looked at him from the corner of his eye.

“Then I guess the two gentlemen should see to what it is and end it. I believe you capable of that?”

“Please. Don’t …”, Mikhail heard himself plead again. He did not even know how to end that sentence because the mere idea of phrasing _that_ threatened his sanity.

Down the corridor, somewhere in the distance of the hotel, the screams had turned into a chorus now, only drowned out again and again by the hard, brutal bursts of guns and automatic rifles.

“I’m a patient man”, Viktor Elisov said with a smile. “But not today. Get going, or you’ll have to wipe Mr. Liu’s blood from your shoes.”

Mikhail forced himself to look at Fei Long, finding those huge, beautiful eyes staring at him. “Go”, the man whispered, but the Russian still couldn’t move, until Asami grabbed him by the collar of his suit and forced him out of the room.

With a bang the bodyguard threw the door shut behind them.

The Japanese however was still holding Mikhail by the lapels of his jacket, dragging him down the corridor.

“If you want to save him, I need you to focus!”, he growled suddenly, then let go giving him a fierce nudge.

Mikhail stumbled one step backwards but caught himself. He snatched the gun he had carried with him at the back of his belt, flipped off the safety and took one deep breath. Then he looked at the other man, knowing that his eyes were just as burning as the Japanese’s.

“I’m here”, he said without his voice trembling and Asami gave him a nod.

They took out the microphones and earphones hiding in their inner pockets, putting them in place.

“Anything we should know about?”, Asami asked into the microphone.

It was Kirishima’s voice answering: “We’re advancing on the compound, Sir. Ten vans have crashed through the gate at high-speed killing the guards there. They stopped in front of the main hall and a large group of men got out. I can’t give you any numbers. More than twenty for sure. They are armed and they spread out. There is firing inside the building and some guests have managed to flee out to the front, though some of them got shot. Where are you, Sir?”

“In the right wing, first floor, heading back to the Lobby”, Asami answered very much like the artificial voice of a robot. He had put one finger to the earphone to hear better, while he stared at the door which presumably lay between them and war. “I am with Mikhail. Fei Long is with Elisov. He kept him at gun point. They are in an office in the right wing, third door to the left. There is another of Elisov’s men as well.”

There was some more information relayed between Kirishima and the other parties nearing the building now, but both men in that corridor did only halfheartedly listen to it. They had closed up to the doors, paying attention to what was happening behind, waiting for a good moment to leave what up until now seemed to be a safe place.


	19. Fei Long

“Oh, _that_ was one longing gaze. Sorry to split you from your knight in shining armor. He seems indeed _very_ fond of you”, Elisov mused when the door had banged shut behind Mikhail and Asami. Shots and screams were still resounding dully from beyond the hallway and other rooms.

Suddenly the cold hurt of the pistol forced against his skin was gone yet replaced by a firm hand grabbing his upper arm. Elisov yanked him aside with so much force that Fei Long stumbled. The man however held him so tight, he could not fall. Instead, he was pushed against the heavy, old desk.

“Sit down!”, the man ordered him, shoving him onto the tabletop.

Fei Long did as he was told.

“Don’t look so hurt”, the Russian then turned to smile warmly again. He let go of his arm, raising the gun once more. “Everyone has a knight in shining armor. Maybe both of them are yours right now. Maybe _you_ are for Mr. Arbatov. That knight isn’t necessarily the one that saves our body, it might also be the one to save our soul.”

A melancholic expression formed on his face, overshadowing his blue eyes. For somebody who was pointing a weapon towards another, his finger on the trigger, he did not look even slightly aggressive.

“Who is yours?”, Fei Long asked him in a hush.

“My children”, Elisov answered without hesitation and those eyes cleared up a bit. “Now, take off your jacket, please.”

Feeling his eyes narrow at the request, Fei Long didn’t move, until the Russian asked again. “Please. I am not going to ask you to strip, don’t worry. Just your jacket.”

Then he freed himself from the black coat and handed it over. Elisov put it onto the backrest of one of the large wing chairs, then slowly raised his free hand towards his hostage, who watched it approach but did not flinch from it.

Elisov untied the knot of the dark blue silk scarf Fei Long had put on instead of a fly or cravat, and slowly pulled it off.

“Your hands, please”, was the next request, spoken kindly.

Fei Long again hesitated for a moment, but then lifted both his arms towards the other man. Elisov put the gun away, while his bodyguard watched from the door, now gripping a pistol of his own. That guy seemed as alert as a guard dog, listening so intently to the noise somewhere else that one could believe he had literally pricked up his ears. But the ruckus was getting louder anyway. Shots and machine fire could be heard echoing in from different angles now, through the walls, through the ceiling and floor as well as through the windows. Underneath that the screams were nearly drowned out.

With the scarf the Russian bound his hostage’s hands together, so tightly that the Chinese hissed at one point.

“Sorry”, Viktor Elisov whispered, then took a step away. He snatched back the jacket, running his fingers along the fabric and searching the pockets, until he pulled out the earpiece and microphone. He regarded them for a moment, as they lay innocently in his hand, before one of his eyebrows twitched upwards.

“Seems like you were planning something after all?”

Fei Long shook his head very lightly. “No. We didn’t. We have men nearby and were prepared, in case you would play any tricks on us.”

Those blue eyes glowed dangerously now, staring into the Chinese’s with burning intensity, but again they cleared and became brighter once more.

“Only that I didn’t”, he declared, let the small devices fall to the ground and stepped on them to break them. “Are you armed?”

Now Fei Long nodded. “A gun, at the back.”

Elisov came closer, pushing the other man’s knees apart to step in between. He leaned forward and Fei Long instinctively drew away from him, though he couldn’t go far.

“Don’t worry”, the Russian assured with a smile, then wrung his arms around the smaller man, letting his fingers trail down the other’s spine. Fei Long could not keep himself from shuddering beneath the unwanted touch. Then the man found the gun in the holster hidden in his belt. With a little click the buckle holding it there was released and Elisov withdrew right away, the pistol in hand.

He held it up to the light, beholding it appreciatively. “A Beretta 92FS Fusion. I think there are only about 60 of these in the world?”

Fei Long nodded. The gun was indeed more a piece of jewelry than a weapon with its bright gleaming steel frame, a hand polished inlay of walnut root and a black carbon fiber grip.

“Very beautiful”, Elisov declared, then suddenly leaned in again, placing the gun back to from where he had taken it. When he pulled away Fei Long blinked up at him.

“Why?”, he asked and the Russian shrugged.

“I would not like you to lose it, and with your hands bound like that you can’t reach it anyway, can you?”, the man smiled warmly, not even irritated when Fei Long tried to wriggle his wrists out of the silk scarf tying them up together – without any success.

Then the Russian put his hands to him once more. _This_ time he could not prevent himself from flinching as the fingers reached for his throat. They started to undo the buttons of his shirt down from the collar to his chest and pulled it open gently.

“Wise”, Elisov judged about the thin bulletproof vest showing beneath the black silk.

“Just in case”, the Chinese answered.

There was an explosion somewhere inside the building that made the walls and windows shudder for a second. All of them looked about, listening intently for anything changing in the symphony of chaos, but is just went back to as it had been before.

“So…”, Elisov turned back to his hostage, his voice and visage not seeming as carefree anymore as he had managed them to appear before. “…if this is not my doing, nor yours. Then who?”

“Chernobog?”, Fei Long asked quietly and the Russian wrinkled his nose.

He looked away then, seemingly caught in thought, while Fei Long let his gaze drop to the floor. There still lay the broken microphone and earpiece, which had been the only chance of finding out what was happening from in here.

Swallowing hard he remembered Mikhail’s eyes, widened in worry, not even blinking, until Asami had grabbed him to drag him out of the room. As he listened to the shots and salvos ranting through the hotel, they seemed to get louder each by each, like they would permeate through the walls in an instant, while his heartbeat matched their rhythm, racing in his chest.

Maybe all was lost already…

He bit his lower lip so heavily he could taste the iron flavor of his own blood.

Another bang made all of them jump. There were shouts in the hallway just outside the door now, the voices so muffled that not even their language could be understood.

“I’ll get rid of that”, the bodyguard declared, his eyes glowing eerily. He switched the safety of his gun off, waiting for the approval of his boss. Then Elisov nodded.

When the door was opened the noise of one salvo in the distance down the corridor swooped in, but then the entrance was shut again between them.

Elisov took out his gun again, walking around the giant desk, on which Fei Long still sat, hardly moving. The other man stepped up to the windows for a second but then obviously thought that was unwise. He sat down on the leather desk chair instead and suddenly grabbed a fistful of the Chinese’s long black hair, pulling him down.

The back of Fei Long’s head hit the solid tabletop to hard he hissed from the pain searing through his skull and neck. He panted for air several times until the hurt subsided.

Elisov had yanked him down backwards, so he lay on the desk now, the Beretta pushing into the small of his back, his tied hands folded on his chest, the edge of the table piercing into the hollows of his knees. Opening his eyes, he found the other man inches above, leaning on one of his elbows while he still sat in that chair, his other hand holding up the small SIG Sauer.

In the hallway shots echoed up and down for about two minutes, then they stopped, and silence fell.

“What do you say?”, the Russian whispered after a moment. “The next one to come in through that door: Shoot or let live?”

Fei Long didn’t answer. He stared up at the other, knowing that if looks could kill he would not need any gun to shoot the man.

Then the door was flung open, hitting against the wall with a loud bang. Elisov stood up, a dark grin forming on his face, he raised the gun.

“What the fuck is going on?”, he asked in Russian then half of his face exploded in a fountain of blood and bone. He stumbled backwards, hitting against one of the bookshelves between the windows, before a second blast tore open his throat and he fell to the ground heavily.

Fei Long had closed his eyelids, feeling hot blood on his face. He shook his head to get rid of some drops that had threatened to run into his eyes, before he dared to look again. There was no sound now, except for the cacophony of chaos far away in the rest of the hotel.

He slowly set up and the man who had been slowly approaching stopped in his tracks as if he was a kid that had been caught sneaking up. This man’s face however was far away from the innocence of any child. His grey eyes burned with malice, the scar on his face shimmering sinisterly, his grin broadening as he knew he had been recognized.

“Lovely memories, aren’t they?”, he chuckled, speaking in Russian.

He had whipped and beaten Fei Long on that cargo ship weeks ago, demanding that he would scream in pain, but the Chinese had not fulfilled his request even once until he had lost consciousness.

“Don’t fucking move, you bitch”, the man spat now, coming closer still. His name was Aaron, Fei Long recalled. He was with Chernobog, and so his hunch from before about who was attacking them had been proven correct – not that he had had any doubts about that.

The Russian drew closer still, his steaming gun slightly trembling from the fierce grip it was held in. Fei Long watched him, trying to pull his hands from the silk scarf but not succeeding again.

“Nice of Viktor to spare me some work. Actually, I had planned some more for you, but well, time is not on our side it seems.”

And then the man flung himself forward, the gun suddenly gone. He grabbed Fei Long’s throat with both hands, pushing him down onto the table again, throwing himself on top.

With the iron grip closing around his neck at once all air was stopped from reaching his lungs. Fei Long choked for breath and couldn’t get any. He pushed his bound fists against the man weighing down on him, and tried to hit him with his knuckles, but the angle wasn’t allowing him any hard punches. He kicked and writhed with now avail, tears brimming in his eyes, black blotches showing up before his vision.

“At least I have time for _this_ ”, Aaron hissed at him, his lips only an inch away so that Fei Long could feel the other’s breath on his face while still fighting for just the smallest sip of air.

“Look at me”, the man snarled, giving his neck a jerk, smashing the back of his head onto the table – but only using his left hand. It was nothing but a millisecond of chance. The little gap of the man pulling him upwards and thumping him down again onto the desk Fei Long used to smash his hands sideways, hitting them as hard as he could against the right arm of the Russian.

A sharp gasp shot from Aaron’s lips. Fei Long tried to roll himself to the left, out of the man’s grip, but did only manage to turn onto his side. Then the hands caught his neck again, the weight of the man locking him onto the table in a position in which he could neither use his arms nor his legs to fight back. Right away those hands started to strangle him again, just when he had managed to draw in one shallow, burning sip of air.

He heard the man’s pants in his ear, as he leaned onto Fei Long with all his weight, to keep him in place, wringing the life out of him with his hands around the other’s throat.

Fei Long closed his eyes when there was nothing but burning red shooting through him, when the panting of the man was drowned out by white noise filling his ears. He shoved his elbows across the table, grabbing with his hands at whatever he could find and when it felt like it might be of any use at all he took the only chance he had left, smashing his arms upwards against the head of the other.

A high-pitched screech was the first thing he heard sounding louder than the murmur in his ears and he realized that it was the whiff of life reaching his lungs again. He found himself on the table, retching and coughing for air, his breath misting on the polished wood around some drops of his own saliva. He took a long moment to know where up and down was and to gather the strength to lift himself up.

Aaron was standing only steps away. He tried with his right hand to pull his gun, but his fingers didn’t seem to work as he wanted them to. With his left he touched the long, narrow calligraphic pen that was stuck deep in his eye socket.

His grin was still there, fixed on Fei Long maliciously. His lips moved but did not pronounce any word. His feet moved as if he wanted to walk towards the other but instead, he slowly stepped backwards.

It was a strange sight, looking very much as if he had been caught on tape and the video was running in reverse now. Gravity that was supposed to make anything fall down seemed to keep him upright yet pulled him away. One step after the other all the way through the large room, while Fei Long watching him, still struggling for air. Small white lightning flickered through his vision as he watched the other.

Then Aaron bumped backwards into the wall far away, still fumbled with his gun, still holding onto the pen. There was blood streaming down his face now but his other eye kept gleaming devilishly as if he knew he would be victorious anyway.

He let go of the pen with a low growl, moving his left hand down his side, down the army jacket he wore, grabbing some small black egg. All with the fingers of the left hand he fiddled around the little thing, then wrenched his arm up in the air.

Fei Long caught his breath in his throat watching the little trinket in the other’s hand as the man slid down the wall – not as gravity was pulling him but as if it pushed him. He let go of the egg too late, however. It popped out of his fingers when he hit the ground, rolling over the floor in a small circle. There it lay perfectly still, looking innocent: the tiny grenade.

And Fei Long swung his feet into the air, flinging himself backwards over the desk and crushing down on the other side of the massive piece of wood. He slammed into the lifeless body of Viktor Elisov, then pushed his head to the ground, covering it from atop with his bound arms, waiting for apocalypse.

It hit four long seconds later.


	20. ...

The whole world trembled. It burned away in a wave of bright red inferno, inverting time, tearing the air apart and turning sound into a solid wall.

He knew that he was alive, when he could taste sulfur in his mouth though that might as well have been true for waking up in hell. But there was also water on his face, streaming down his skin, soaking his clothes. Faintly he started to move, brushing some strands of black hair away that clung to his cheek. He opened his eyes, but the world remained dull and grey and misty for a while in which he blinked against the rainfall still washing down upon him. Once color slowly returned, the pain set in as well.

There was a throbbing, piercing agony filling his head, that made him nearly close his eyes again and just stay there, whatever may come.

But _that_ he could not do. He could not give in or give up – ever.

He needed to fight.

The giant desk had been forced three yards towards the windows by the blast of the explosion, pushing the dead men and the living one with it, shoving them against each other. Fei Long had to wind himself out of the trap between the now once more unmoving monstrosity of writing table and the corpse of Viktor Elisov.

He hissed against the pain in his skull, which was just the most aching one, but by far not the only. After freeing himself he forced himself unto his knees, turning his head up to the water floating down from the extinguishers. It felt nicely cold on his skin. Then he looked around the room.

The lights had gone out. All illumination was now won from the bar where the large collection of exquisite beverages had been smashed and where fire raged wherever the alcohol had splattered. But that was it.

Though the room was singed and scorched, though all the books had been blasted to smithereens, their pages spread all around like feathers of a plucked chicken; though the furniture had been hurled against walls and bookshelves like they were missiles themselves and the leather of the winged chairs had been torn apart, the fire protection had worked splendidly so far and the solid, painted wood did not allow the burning snakes hissing at it to grab hold easily. But the water had not managed to put out those flames feeding on the Whisky and Vodka, and slowly they were winning ground, inch by inch, biting their teeth into the paneling and into the ceiling and floorboards after torturing them long enough to finally grab a hold. Gradually the room was filling with smoke.

So, Fei Long fought himself onto his feet, feeling the world once more tremble around him. It wanted to turn onto its back and through him off, it shuttered beneath him and swayed from side to side. Still, he managed to put one step in front of the other, first slowly, then faster, finally stumbling forward passing the dead man lying next to the door. He fell out of the room like Alice through the rabbit hole, and slammed into the opposite wall of the corridor, collapsing against it down onto his knees again.

When he found himself panting against the pain in his head and a heavy sting in his left side that hurt more every time he breathed, he finally realized that his hands had been freed. There was no blue silk scarf left. He was pushing both of his palms down onto the wooden floor, but they were not bound anymore. Yet there was blood on them.

Pushing himself up unto his heels he started to search for wounds. He let his fingers wander across his face, then through his hair, but though his skull seemed to burst from the pain inside he could not find any injury. He only found blood beneath his ears where the rain from the ceiling hadn’t managed to wash it away.

It was not much but there was still a little more in his right ear canal which he had tried to keep pushed to the ground. Slowly it dawned on him that his hearing was probably off. He looked back into the room which was now almost filled with smoke. Once it made its way out here it would start the sprinklers here as well. But had he actually heard the water? Did he hear the roaring of the flames?

He turned his gaze down the corridor, where several men lay dead – one of them the bodyguard of Viktor Elisov killed with one bullet to the head. If the shooting had not withdrawn to an area further away, then his hearing was dulled out quite a bit.

Very likely his eardrums had burst.

From the pain in his skull and the way the corridor swayed just as much as the room had, he was sure that he had a concussion as well, if not worse.

Still, he forced himself back up onto his feet, hissing at the pain, but not allowing it to stop him. He drew his gun, checked that it was still loaded and working, then walked down towards the large doors that would take him out of this presumptive safety that was threatened already with the fire slowly devouring the room.


	21. Asami

He leaped away from a hail of projectiles heading his way, hiding behind the bathtub-sized pot of one very huge bonsai. Only one shot grazed across his arm, tearing open his shirt but did not do any more damage than some stinging. The man who had fired it, however, misjudged his luck or abilities. He came running, jumping around the corner and hitting the ground dead a second later from Asami’s bullet slamming into his chest.

“You still alive?”, he heard Mikhail shout from across the main hall.

Asami was a bit jealous of the cover the man had found. He had dug behind a counter which would probably have been used for a concierge or information service once the hotel had taken up its businesses – it didn’t seem like it would anytime soon now.

The front of the counter was fitted with inlays of black slate from which any shots ricocheted off in various directions, only splintering the stone slightly.

He was also in the advantage of understanding what the Russian attackers were shouting towards each other, but right now there wasn’t much to be understood of that anyway.

For the same reason they were neglecting the earpieces and microphones. Only now and then could one or two words be understood of what was screamed in there as the ruckus around was just too loud and the noise everywhere on the other sides made the microphones crackle.

It was hard to tell who was friend or foe now, with smoke billowing up across the balconies from down in the parc where the fleeing guests had stumbled against the torches. Parts of the botany had been set ablaze, while the irrigation system taking up the role of fire extinguishers fought against it. Also, all the lights had gone out and the halls and corridors and balconies had turned into a bleak labyrinth of obstacles and dead bodies and pools of blood, in between anywhere someone with the urge to kill could hide.

The last information they had gathered from Kirishima was, that some of the attackers had chased a large group of guests into the left wing of the hotel – purely by chance maybe. There were suites and rooms like that in any other part of the building. But on which floor they were currently and where their own men had spread out to, they had not been able to understand.

Upstairs there was still somewhere a machine gun blaring away which was louder and more constant than all the other noise, but it wasn’t by far the only. Alone in this large hall there were at least three more men, crouching somewhere, dressed in black and therefore hard to see.

Another salvo of shots slammed against the slate at the front of the counter and Asami took that chance to search for the muzzle flash – and found two at the same place. He dragged himself across the floor behind the body of a man he believed to have been with Baishe, then shot rather blindly at where he judged the gunner’s heads to be. Experience was on his side. Both men slammed down to the ground and Asami just hurried around to them, keeping his head down all the time, and made sure that both were dead.

He slid his way back then, hearing shots soaring into his direction but smashing into the wall steps behind him rather badly aimed. Whoever was shooting now probably saw him not well enough in the dark and in that black suit. With a giant lunge forward he dived behind the counter as well colliding with Mikhail who had luckily recognized him early enough to not just shoot him.

“Fuck this!”, the Russian exclaimed. “How many are there?”

“I think only one here, right now.”

It was a lucky guess, both new, because the ballroom as well as the bar and lobby and main halls had all their windows opened onto the balconies, which were built in one large curve. From one end of the catwalk, one could shoot into all the other floors. Therefore, even if there might be only one single man left in their vicinity _now_ , it did not save them from any marksmen on other levels of the building. Also, via the large stairs and through the doors of adjacent corridors anybody could just come in here.

“Let’s get upstairs”, Asami growled, reloading his gun. There weren’t too many bullets left. They would soon have to look for spare ammunition or dead men’s weapons to replace their own. “Guess we have a better look from there. And we need to get rid of that machine gun above.”

Mikhail nodded heavily.

“I give you cover”, Asami snarled. Then he leaned himself out from behind the counter on the ground and started to shoot into the darkness of the room. The Russian darted out the other side, jumping onto the broad spiral staircase which was only giving enough cover due to the massive lattices used for its railing.

“Go!”, Mikhail yelled and started firing himself. Asami flew out from behind the bar and sailed up the stairs like he was weightless, once again smashing down on the ground next to the other man.

“He’s in the door frame to the entrance hall!”, the Russian shouted but had to repeat it. The noise of the machine gun once again tore at their ears. Then he pointed the way and Asami finally saw. He gave Mikhail cover and finally the gunner slammed to the ground.

They made their way upstairs, getting rid of several men who had encircled a group of Asami’s own, penning them with the crossfire of in fact two machine guns. The Chernobog ones had however seemingly forgotten that an attack could as well come from the other side – at least all but one. The last, who crouched behind a side turned table, gave quite some resistance, until he ran out of ammo. The click of his gun echoed around the upper floor which suddenly seemed all quiet even though on the other levels and wings of the hotel still shots were fired.

“Let’s get rid of him”, Mikhail hissed, darting forward and hiding away from any possibly missed other enemy or a second gun found on his goal behind one of the giant wood columns carrying the roof. The man he was going for was however not having it. With a screech, he jumped out from behind the table and Asami only knew that he had thrown something when it hit against one of the bronze Buddha statues with a loud ‘ _pling’_.

“Fuck!”, Mikhail yelled, running away and throwing himself for cover somewhere where Asami couldn’t see him anymore. Then an explosion rocked the upper level, roaring through the floorboards on which he was crouching. The flash of light blinded him because he had not looked away soon enough and the heat washed over his face. But the grenade had been diverted from hitting against the bronze statue to tumble out onto the balcony and had exploded there, taking a part of the railing and roof with it – and the man who had thrown it and had tried to make for the stairs.

‘ _That was really bad luck’_ , Asami thought while he rubbed his eyes trying to wash away the bright blotches the flash had left there.

The Russian was back at his side, while his own men left for the upper floor’s right wing. There, they believed to find more of those they needed to get rid of.

Asami however needed to find ammunition for his Glock 27. He had just started to search in the dark for anybody lying there dead with a caliber .40 gun, when he found a Megastar still nicely equipped with a magazine full of 10mm rounds. The man, from whom he took it, he judged to be one of Mikhail’s, but neither put up any objections. The one didn’t, because his mind was obviously preoccupied, and the other didn’t, because he was dead.

“What _now_?”, the blonde man asked. For someone whose face showed so much determination even in the darkness, his voice sounded kind of fickle.

They both listened in to the radio transmission but again there was not much to be understood. Somewhere Kirishima was giving orders on how to corner and drive into the open some enemies, but the noise that seemed to match that was far off somewhere in the left wing’s lower floors.

At that point shooting started again downstairs. Both of them turned towards the giant staircase in front of the right wing, because it left less space behind their back than the left area of the hall which opened into the restaurant area. From there some men were swarming back into the upper floor and Asami had already raised is gun towards them, when he heard them shout in Japanese. He answered back, sure that he had been short of being shot himself, because to those men both him and Mikhail were in plain side, yet obviously not recognizable.

From both staircases at the balconies and the inner one which connected this area to the bar beneath, suddenly shots spun through the room. Figures spread out into the darkness, searching for cover, seemingly fleeing from whoever came up the stairs behind them. When they emerged as well, Asami found himself unable to determine which of those men had been friend or foe.

He just sneaked behind one of the broad, wooden columns, just like Mikhail did some steps away, and opened fire.

The shooting lasted for a while, with Asami counting his rounds and trying to get any idea of where anybody was. But it was so hard to see anything. Only muzzle flash of the weapons did ever give anybody away, but then you could still not tell _who_ was _who_.

Kirishima’s voice was heard in the earpiece once more, but Asami did not understand or care. There was no way of getting to them anyway and no way he could interest himself into anything but his own hide in this very moment. And all he could do was try to aim his shots at those who seemed to be aiming at _him_ – thought that wasn’t easy to judge.

When the shooting of another machine gun blasted through the hall both of them concentrated on the man firing it, but he had hidden behind one of the Buddha statues which had tumbled to the ground.

Asami finally took a run for him, when the fire was again concentrating on his own men on the other side of the hall, but that drew all the other guns to turn towards him. He felt bullets soar across inches from his body, hitting the wall behind him, splintering wood. On the last steps, the man with the machine gun, saw him, turned, but not fast enough. Asami swooped down onto him, killing him with one shot to the head and taking cover behind the fallen Buddha himself.

He had just turned onto his back and raised his gun again, when a black figure looked down on him, rifle raised and ready. Asami saw the movement of the hand, saw the face split into a grin. Then three shots roared up. Two hit the figure into the chest and he smashed into the island of bamboo which had managed to stay mostly intact – until now.

Asami followed up with a single shot to the man’s forehead, then he dared to look up, finding Mikhail still behind the column halfway across the room.

“Thank you!”, he yelled in Japanese, guessing that one of his own men nearby had saved his life, but it was a voice answering from a different angle. One he knew all too well, even if right now it sounded a bit too high and feeble.

“Asami?”

He darted up, halfway out of his cover, taking a quick look, finding for some seconds no shots coming his way, because his men had taken to fire at an edge of the room where at least two foes hid.

“Where are you?”, he screamed back, finding Mikhail squint out from behind the column as well.

A hand with a gun shot up for a moment from behind one large stone vase.

“You alright?”

“Where is he?”, Mikhail yelled in between.

Asami didn’t answer. He still waited for a reply from Fei Long, but didn’t get one.

Instead, one other voice yelled his name from somewhere.

“Asami!”, it was Sudou.


	22. Sudou

Screams and shouts and gun shots filled the air like an overture to an opera of vengeance. _His_ vengeance!

Aaron had wanted to leave them behind, but Sudou had yelled at him, had raged at him. It might not have impressed the other man, because that one had been armed and the Japanese wasn’t. But he had understood that there was nothing stopping the other.

Yes, this was dangerous. He knew it. He had walked into the Macau warehouse knowing that and had almost payed for that with his life. At this point he was fine with it. What was there left of it anyhow except of agony of the body and the mind?

He would not back down now, he would not sit and wait and hear how another opportunity was wasted. He would walk in there himself and if it cost him his life than that was as it should be.

At least he knew that he had tried!

He stayed with Sakazaki, following behind a large group of Chernobog, that chased some fancy dressed guests up and down all the way through the whole hotel, laughing at their begging and wailing. Not a single shot did he fire, holding tight to the gun Aaron had shoved into his hand. He would need the bullets later. He watched as men and women who had been sipping Champagne minutes before drowned in their own blood, and he stepped over them unmoved. He listened to the sobs of grown-up men and imagined they were the agony of others.

A few times Sakazaki had to pull him behind columns and corners into cover from the artillery of the enemy, but whenever a bullet found his way it passed him by some inches, like it did not dare touch him. Now he was being dragged down a corridor by the man, following the group of Chernobog again, which withdrew into the main hall from an onslaught. Sakazaki fired his gun a few times as if he was scared. As if there was anything left to save.

“Why are there so many! This is bad!”, he had testified several times, but Sudou would not agree with him. They had not expected an army to fight back against them, but for him it was the more the merrier!

Back in the main hall they dove behind a counter, listening to the song of bullets cutting through the air, tearing through cloth and skin and muscle and bone, ricocheting off bronze statues and stone, bursting wood into shrapnel. Between that there were shots and screams and wailing. Both on this floor and the one above.

Sudou started to smile filled with joy from the sound, then to laugh.

“Have you lost it?”, Sakazaki yelled at him, firing his gun off into the darkness somewhere where he might have seen a shadow - or not.

The din and noise were a crescendo, filling not only the room or the building, but every inch of his own body and mind and he laughed to it with the greatest joy he had ever felt, the hurt in his head for once forgotten, until there was one voice heard through all the chaos – loud and clear. And it made him freeze.

“Thank you!”, it yelled in Japanese. Somewhere above.

“Where are you?... You alright?”, followed seconds later in which Sudou just listened as if his mind could soar up there, seeing and hearing only those words, that voice!

He leapt to his feet, knowing that now bullets shot his way. He flew up the stairs, he raised his gun, he screamed.

“Asami!”

Behind the body of a fallen Buddha, he saw him, the little light that was there anyway reflected onto his marvelous features by the bronze of the statue. He seemed to glow.

“What the fuck!”, Sakazaki screamed running up the stairs from behind. “Get down!”

But Sudou did not move, he just watched the man he had come for. The one he would have for himself. The one he would not share.

He had walked into the Macau warehouse knowing that it might mean his death. He had not fled when the chopper had started to tear concrete and stone apart, for he had come for this one man and he would not leave without him. Everything he had done, he had done for him, anything he would still do. But then he had found him in the arms of that filth, and he had only been able to raise his gun, to destroy them both. For he would not share that man!

And now he had come here, knowing again the danger. But what life would that be having to imagine that man in the arms of another. How they lay together, how he touched another. He would not live that way, and nor would he allow Asami Ryuichi.

He would be _his_ or no one’s.

Bullets seared around him now, so close he could feel them, taste them, but they would not dare hurt him. He did not need to take cover. He just needed to raise his gun.

But Sakazaki didn’t know.

“Get the fuck down!”, he barked and threw himself against Sudou, pulling him down to hide behind debris – parts of the roof that had been torn down.

“Are you fucking mad?”, the other cried, but Sudou just shook his head. No, he wasn’t. He had never been this clear.

The attack on their position lasted for a moment, then there were other men forcing their way upstairs and the tide turned against those who had held the upper floor.

He should just get up, he thought. He should just go over there. He felt the cold gun in his hand, listening to the ruckus that was a part of his own body and soul now.

“ _Where_ are you?”, he heard a voice again he knew to be that of Mikhail Arbatov. Sakazaki hissed and dared a look beyond the planks of wood shielding them.

It was enough to draw attention back to them and their cover was slowly unraveling with a bombardment hailing down upon it.

“We need to get out of here!”, the other barked. He grabbed Sudou at the front of his jacket to drag him along. They got up and stumbled from the shots just turning towards them right away.

Sakazaki screamed, then jumped away and Sudou just fell to the floor. He rolled over it, away from the other. That one was doomed anyway. He was too nervous, too scared to lose his life.

He rolled over the floor and it was a joy. He searched for the fallen Buddha again and saw that Asami was still behind it. Maybe he should just roll himself over there and finish them both!

Nearly sliding down the first ones he hit the stairs, colliding with the railing. He ducked down below the top step, checking if anybody was near who would just shoot him. But right here he was quite well covered behind a heap of bodies and a small table that had crashed onto them. It looked very much like an exhibit in a museum for modern art.

He raised his head, listening to the shots which first bellowed this way then that way, changing their course and goal again and again. One moment they bounced against a giant stone vase just steps away and ricocheted off, then the tide turned again, and the vase shot back. Or whoever was behind it.

Who it was, he saw in the dim light and the flash of the gun. He was on his feet within a second, over there in another, smashing himself down onto the man, who had not seen or heard him coming. There was less resistance than he had expected. He smashed his gun down onto the other, against his arms and fists first that were brought up in defense, but he grabbed them with his other hand, pushing them away, then hit the fucking cunt on the temple with the grip of his weapon. The other’s limps lost all strength for an instant, and Sudou just pulled him up by his long black hair and pulled him down the stairs.

“Sudou!”, he heard Asami scream behind him, but he did not stop. Almost flying he waltzed down the stairs, dragging the other along, one arm fixed around his throat, the man’s fingers digging and tearing at his flesh with little strength. Shots and shouts greeted them downstairs and Sudou just changed direction, realizing that the was further down was cut off, while on the stairs above he now heard the heavy footprints of another. He _knew_ who it was, heard his voice yell after him, but more than that he could imagine the man in all his glory, wearing a dark suit, not breaking into a sweat, his golden eyes glowing even if here was no light around to be trapped in them.

He drew away from the ruckus and dangers of the main hall along the balcony, pulling the other with him as if he was weightless. Then they reached the platform protruding out from the building into the night sky which hung overhead silent and beautiful, and he stepped out there where only starlight and the fires from below would witness them. With his back to the end of the catwalk he withdrew until he reached the far end. There he raised his gun, pushing it at the other’s head and waited.

Waited until Asami Ryuichi stepped out of the shadows. And he did. His hands spread to both sides, fingers wide in a gesture of submission. “Don’t”, he said, approaching slowly and his golden eyes shone more beautifully than any celestial body ever could.


	23. Asami

He had skid down the stairs, had shot three men on his pursuit. He dived through the darkness of the main hall and bar away from bullets, out onto the far side of the giant balcony, walking out into the night, spreading his arms.

Still, he had the gun in his fingers, but it pointed away to not scare the other. He was showing his hands, to prove that _right now_ he was just drawing closer, with small, measured, slow steps. He was not any threat.

Out here they could be shot by anyone in the building stepping out onto the catwalks but from the sound it seemed everyone else was well occupied with each other now. So Asami advanced, baring his back to an attack from behind, because…

… because there was nothing else, he could think of to do.

Sudou peeked at him half hidden behind Fei Long who was a tiny bit taller but seemed hardly able to keep standing if it wasn’t for the arm wound tightly around his throat. There was blood trailing down the side of the Chinese’s face from a laceration on his temple, there were bruises and dirt all over him. He had his eyes closed; his head pushed aside from the muzzle pressing hard against his cheek. The man behind seemed almost sparkling in comparison. His hair had hardly been ruffled; his clothes weren’t disheveled. He looked like he had just walked into a ballroom for a nice evening, if it wasn’t for his eyes, which burned towards Asami and for the finger twitching at the trigger of the pistol.

“Don’t”, he said again, stepping up to less than ten steps.

Sudou’s face flinched, he smiled one second then looked as if he was about to cry, before his lips tugged upwards again.

“I’ll kill him for _you_ ”, Sudou whispered. He pulled his arm closer and forced a muffled gasp out of Fei Long’s throat.

Asami spread his arms even further, making sure the gun did not seem dangerous to the other. “Don’t”, he said again, dragging his voice but speaking loud and clear.

“He is your enemy! I will kill him for you”, Sudou hummed, tightening his grip and arm again.

“That is not necessary”, Asami spoke. “Listen…”

“No!”, the boy bellowed. “He came here to Elisov. To destroy you! I saw! He is your enemy! I will kill him for you. I will save you! I will do it for you! You will see!”

He screamed, sentence by sentence, the distress and zeal in his voice heightening each time he drew a breath in between.

“Do not do that”, Asami answered, emphasizing every word. “Sudou!”

The man shrugged heavily. He took one leap back, pulling Fei Long off his feet, but he would not fall. The arm was holding him too tight.

“Let him go. This is between you and me.”

“No”, Sudou shook his head slowly and kept shaking it for a while. “No. No. I will kill him for you. I will prove that I am yours! I have always been yours! And you are mine. There can be no other. I will destroy all our enemies. I will kill them all.”

His finger again twitching around the trigger, he shoved the gun fiercely against Fei Long’s cheekbone, who gasped at that and opened his eyes.

“I don’t want you…”, Asami spoke, taking one step nearer, “…to kill him. Please.”

And at that the gun was raised towards him, aiming at his head from only steps away, ready to be shot.

“Sudou”, he whispered. The eyes of the other flickered at him, burning with madness and desire and despair.

“No”, the boy whispered. “You will not see me. You never saw me. I will kill _you_ and then it will be only you and me”, he said, his voice not quavering anymore. He smiled and his eyes lit up even more, he corrected his aim, he moved his finger.

Asami closed his eyes instinctively, for what felt like eternity and was less than a moment. Death passed him by the width of an eyelash.

Fei Long had pushed the gun away the second it was shot. Sudou stumbled backwards against the railing which had been hit by too many bullets before. It creaked and squealed from his weight but held him. He lashed forward, gabbing Fei Long around the shoulders and they both fell backwards against the railing again, that did not bear them together. It splintered and broke, and both of them fell into the darkness behind.


	24. Mikhail

He had to dive behind the wooden pillar again and again, for someone had taken to concentrate his shooting onto him. Whenever there was a break, he tried to send a bullet back, not sure if where he aimed there would actually be any target.

When another hail of rounds hit the column, it shook behind him. Shrapnel of wood sprayed around him, splattering into his face. He hissed as some of them cutting across his cheek and felt droplets of blood on his skin a second later. But then the marksmen suddenly reconsidered. Mikhail turned and found the muzzle flash of several guns barking at each other, like they wanted to form a star between them.

He just took the opportunity to shoot at wherever he saw the light. This was all a fucking waste of time! He did not want to care about some bloody Chernobog men now, or – to duel with friendly fire because no one could really see the other and just blindly shot at whoever seemed an enemy. This had turned into one fucking nightmare and he just wanted to get to Fei Long.

Hardly he had heard his voice. Had called for him and Asami, wanting to know where Fei Long was, but had never received one answer.

Cursing under his breath he took one concentrated aim at from where he now knew had been shot at him before. He shot, he hit. But the other guns were pointed at him right away, so he took cover again behind the pillar.

Then another figure stumbled there. Cursing, wailing, shooting his gun around the room in an attempt to keep his own back cleared before he dashed behind a column just steps away from Mikhail.

They stared at each other for a second. Mikhail raised his gun at the other man, who froze in shock, aware that if he would just flinch, he would die – aware that he was still aiming his own weapon into the wrong direction.

It was Sakazaki putting up that stupid grin of his as if with _that_ he could avoid being killed. It would not save him, Mikhail decided and pulled the trigger, but his pistol just clicked.

He pulled again and again. And nothing but clicking was the answer.

At that Sakazaki laughed out loud, then turned and pointed his own weapon, and Mikhail dived away, followed by shots that hit the wall just a step behind him. He stumbled into a run and the other took up the pursuit. Into doorframes, behind columns he darted, chased out right away by the other just advancing in total disregard that other marksmen could just turn their aim towards _him_. But here in the right corner of the hall there seemed to be no one left to interfere and quickly Mikhail found himself running out of options to take cover.

So, he flung himself against one passage marked emergency exit and tumbled through it, falling to his knees on the other side, the door swinging shut between him and his persecutor momentarily.

It was pushed open a second later, but the other man had not expected him there. He tripped over Mikhail, who grabbed him. The gun barked into the darkness of the plain, concrete staircase. They clawed into each other, each trying to win over the weapon, each trying to tear the other apart. They plunged down the stairs and the sharp edge of the steps punched all the air out of Mikhail’s lungs.

He collided with the wall of the middle landing, Sakazaki crushing onto him, and he kicked him away, lunging for the gun in the man’s hand right away. But it was pulled away. The Japanese took aim and Mikhail swooped down upon him before he could shoot, pushing both of them down the second flight of stairs. He gasped for air as he landed on the lower floor and for a moment, he thought his spine had snapped and skull had split, for he did not know how to move.

Then Sakazaki sat up one step away, laughing in agony and frustration. He raised the gun and Mikhail kicked at his face, kicked at it again and again, and then at his throat, while shots rang through the narrow tower of the emergency staircase again, bullets hitting the concrete and the metal railing, swooping off into other directions. And he kicked at his throat until Sakazaki threw away the gun, falling over backwards, clawing at his larynx that had been smashed and was cutting off his breath. He stared at Russian with wide, panicking eyes, while his nails started to scratch his neck bloody. With a low, faint growl he finally stopped moving, and Mikhail let himself fall back against the wall, his eyes closed.


	25. Asami

For moments he just stared into the night and nothingness there. His body frozen to the spot, still feeling the shadow of the bullet that had lashed at the air so close to his skin. Then he leapt forward, towards the edge of the dark. The planks of the catwalk teetered beneath his weight.

He leaned over the abyss, where now only thin rivulets streamed down the artificial waterfall. The power failure that had taken all the lights must have stopped the pumps as well, for now no water was flowing beneath the balcony anymore to gush down into the manmade brook three floors below. Down there he could hardly see anything, as the fires burning in the corner of his eyes blinded him towards the darker spaces and the blue glow that was supposed to illuminate the creeks and lakes in the parc had gone out as well.

Gripping the edge of the wooden planks tightly he thought for a second to jump – the quickest way down. But it was too deep and even if he might hit the water there was not telling if it was deep enough or if he might collide with someone else.

So, he jumped to his feed, he turned around, he darted back into the shadows of the building. Shots bellowed around him; screams followed him. He heard the voice of Kirishima calling after him but could not tell where the man was, nor where he himself was at that second. He sailed down the stairs, smashing one man who took aim at him out of the way so fiercely that that guy was tossed over the railing.

He reached the ground level, feeling the heat of the flames blazing nearby and only kept in check by the artificial landscape of small creeks and lakes and by the white paths of stone. Down there it was utterly black wherever the light of the fires didn’t manage to penetrate. The memory of the inferno printed into his eyes and glowing there as golden dots in the actual darkness, Asami stumbled down the path beneath the balcony, following towards the protruding platform he could hardly see above as a black shape against the dim night sky. Several times he nearly tripped over dead bodies and debris which he could barely make out.

Then the waterfall was suddenly right in front of him, its base a little lake and adjacent brook outlined by small, round stones and reed and flowers. He trampled over the edge, right into the water, which reached up to his hips, while the white dots of fire-memory slowly faded from his view. With the wetness splashing up around him his vision and mind seemed to clear and finally he could see again in the dark - and found the shapes in the water and the darkness spreading around them.

He snatched Sudou’s hand that still held tight to the other and pushed it away. He grabbed Fei Long and pulling him up into his arms, kicking to get free of the limbs of the other man that seemed to wind around his legs, then he marched out of the water, climbing across the stones and weed again, falling onto his knees on the white stone path.

Cautiously he placed Fei Long there, brushing black hair out of his face on which danced the light of the flames. What had been there of blood and dirt now had mostly washed away and Asami watched and checked, with eyes and hands to any new traces of crimson showing anywhere. But there weren’t any.

Fei Long lay there peacefully and quiet, while the darkness kept filling the water around Sudou.

He lay there as if he was just sleeping.

And at that moment Asami realized, that he was not breathing.

“Fuck!”, he gasped, then pushed Fei Long’s chin upwards, pinching his nose shut with his fingers and pushed his lips upon the other’s. Slowly he let his breath flow into the other. One time. A second time.

He shot back up, clasping his hands onto each other forcing them down on Fei Long’s chest, pumping heavily, again and again and again, counting his own heartbeats.

“Breath!”, he hissed. Clapping his mouth onto the other’s once more, exhaling slowly, then beating down on him with his hands as before.

He repeated it, again and again.

“Fei Long, breath!”, he begged in the second he found in between, feeling how he was running out of air himself. But he continued.

“Where are you?”, he heard Mikhail’s voice in his ear, sounding via the radio he had forgotten for so long, because that noise in there had become just a background murmur.

But those words now stood out clearly and sharply. They were a plea, and he felt the fear and despair in it, even through the devices in between made it sound screeching and artificial.

“ _Where_ are you?!”, the question again, but he could not answer.

“Don’t!”, he bellowed at Fei Long, pushing his lips onto the other’s again, pushing his breath into him. “Don’t do this to me!”

And he remembered him as he had placed the drunken 21-year-old on the bed of his own hotel room, with a bruise on his cheek and the front of his shirt ripped to shreds. He remembered him as he found him weakened and hardly conscious from the sorrow over his father’s death and the exhaustion from hyperthermia, lying in the rain that had seemed to weep with him as well. He remembered him in his arms, while his blood was spilling over Asami’s fingers. ‘ _Don’t die!_ ’, he had begged him, and he did again _now_.

“Don’t die!”

He pushed his knuckles down again and again, hardly knowing the numbers he was counting anymore.

“Fei Long!”

He pressed his lips down again and was answered with a cough.

He heard himself laugh, catching Fei Long who writhed in his arms, turning onto his side and retching out water. His whole body tensed and spasmed while Asami held his head tight to stop it from hitting against the stones.

“Fuck! Fuck!”, the Japanese panted, drawing eagerly for his own breath, while he leaned down upon the other, resting his forehead on the other man’s shoulder.

Fei Long had his eyes opened now. He seemed to squint into the darkness, blinded by the white path on which he lay.

He whimpered, this breath still hoarse and ragged, and finally managed to speak.

“Mikhail?”, his voice was as faint as the cold sunrise in winter, but Asami set up nonetheless, looking for the other, listening to whatever noise was now to be heard in the radio.

The Russian’s voice was not among them, but then he darted out from the building, almost grazed by the flames that had tried to cut of his path from wherever he had come. The fire made his hair shine golden.

Asami raised one hand, but obviously they had been found already, for Mikhail ran straight towards them, skidding down over his knees for the last steps, hitting the ground next to Fei Long hard. He pulled him up and into his arms, and the Chinese’s hands clung to the front of his shirt, his head falling against the other’s shoulder.

“Thank you”, Mikhail whispered, the tears that could have been heard in his voice over the radio before still brimming in his eyes.


	26. Mikhail

Through the darkness he spun, not really knowing where he _was_ , nor where he was going. He just listened to the voice of Asami, and all the din in the background of the radio, the cacophony of shouts and shots and fighting men were drowned out. He could hear the man’s labored breath, the rustling of his clothes when he moved in a rhythm that sounded like the steps of approaching doom. Through blackness and nothingness, he raced, without a goal yet found, just searching, begging for the man to tell him where he was… where _they_ were.

But there never was an answer and he understood why.

Likewise, did any inch of his body. His heart didn’t want to beat on, his feet did not want to carry him anymore, his lungs did not want to draw any breath. He bit his lips so hard that they should bleed but there was nothing warm flowing in his veins anymore. To his men, who stumbled out from the shadows, relieved he was alive, he was deaf - for all he could hear and all that was left there as sound in the world were the words of the Japanese, his pleading, the desperation in his voice, the air for which he gasped again and again, the name he kept calling like a prayer.

Tears swept into his sight and with the fires dancing and roaring nearby it seemed that his eyes themselves had been set ablaze. He could not see anymore; he could not feel anymore. He would just walk into the inferno and let himself be scorched by the flames.

But then there was that draw of breath. There was coughing and it was the sweetest melody in the world.

“Fuck! Fuck!”, he heard the Japanese swear and it sounded like a cheer of bliss as of yet unknown to man.

Suddenly his eyes could see again; finally, he knew where he was. He sought, he found, he ran, shoving the flames out of his way. They would not halt him now. Nothing would, no one could. He slammed onto the ground hard and it felt like euphoria, and picked Fei Long up into his arms, pulling him close, holding him tight.

“Thank you”, he whispered, and his words and voice sounded like song to him.

Asami nodded stiff and gravely. He pushed a finger onto his ear, pressing the earpiece hard into it to hear better.

“Kirishima”, he growled and waited for an answer.

“Sir?”

“Get us the fuck out of here!”

They made for the vans waiting in the clearing atop the cliffs. The walk was steep, the path dark, but now starlight and the low moon gave them light. Fei Long’s head had fallen against Mikhail’s shoulder, his fingers had at some point lost all strength, so Asami had checked his breathing and pulse – he was just asleep. Or unconscious.

Men with drawn weapons received them at one of the vans, which’s door was already opened, but Mikhail would not give Fei Long out of his arms. He climbed into the back, sitting down on the 3-seat bank in the rear, cradling the other’s head in his hand to support it.

Yet, when he turned, Asami had not gotten inside. He was facing the front, talking to the driver and the man next, who were of his own. In Japanese he spoke to them, then he turned to Mikhail.

“They’ll take you back to the hotel. I need to finish this mess. I send Yoh after you once I find him.”

“Asami!”, the Russian wanted to call him back, but the door had already been thrown shut and a second later they rolled off into the night.

On the silent ride, he rocked Fei Long in his arms, ghosting his lips over his forehead. He did not even dare to kiss his skin, for he did not know if it would hurt.

“It’ll all be fine”, he kept humming.

They darted back into the underground car parc, where two of his own men had been left for security. Only five all in all had stayed back at the hotel to keep their base. The van had hardly skidded to a halt, when the door was pulled open and Mikhail climbed outside. He rushed into the elevator with Fei Long in his arms, not answering any questions. On the fourth floor he marched into the room he knew the other had slept in last night and laid the light, quiet body onto the bed, then fell down on his knees next to him, but only for a moment.

Already he jumped to his feet again, snatched Fei Long back and carried him into the bath, carefully, slowly bedding him into the large bathtub. He took a towel to put between the other’s head and the hard curve of the enamel edge.

“Fei Long”, he whispered, caressing some black strands out of his face. There was a soft, almost inaudible moan but nothing else.

The dragon of Baishe was as pale as the ivory basin that held him, but only where his skin hadn’t been martyred. On his left temple there was a huge bruise in shades of blue and lilac that was slowly spreading down to the eyebrow and the cheekbone. There was a laceration as well, dark crimson and black but after Asami had pulled him from the water only little blood had spilled out of it and had mostly clotted in his hair. On his right cheekbone there was another bruise, lighter but also still spreading. Little cuts and marks and scratches where everywhere on his skin and dark shadows of fingers had formed around his throat and on his collarbones.

Mikhail leaned over him, cautious hardly to touch, his fingers moving slowly and gently. He took off Fei Long’s shirt and the bulletproof vest he had worn underneath, only to find more bruises which were spreading over his whole torso. Making sure the other would not slip down in the bathtub from the motion, he took off his shoes, socks and then his trousers, placing his legs and feet back as tender as he ever could, for he was sure now that there was bone broke – as much as there obviously was in Fei Long’s left arm and hand.

He switched the water on to stream gently and held the shower head above the drain so the water would not touch Fei Long until he had made sure on the back of his own hand that it wasn’t too hot or too cold.

Then he let it flow over Fei Long’s skin, touching him ever so faintly, just to get rid of whatever dirt there might be, and to warm him.

“Fei Long?”, he whispered, leaning his chin onto the edge of the bathtub next to the other’s forehead. “Can you hear me?”

There was no answer, again and again, while he allowed the water to caress the resting body with warmth. Slow, flat but still steady breathing made the chest of the Chinese move up and down, and a few times his eyelashes seemed to flicker.

But nothing more, no matter how often Mikhail spoke his name, until suddenly there was a moan. He yanked the water off and slammed to his knees so fast, he smashed his chin on the enamel and bit his tongue, but he hardly realized.

“Fei Long?”, he whispered, listening for anything, watching for even the slightest twitching of the face. Nothing, nothing…, then another moan. More a hum.

“Fei?”, he breathed and let his fingers ghost along the man’s jawline where there were only little bruises and scratches.

“Mi-“, the lips parted, chapped and dry. “Mikhail?”

It was less than a sigh.

“I’m here”, he answered, stopping the stroking of his fingers and allowing his hand to caress the other’s face ever so faintly. “Fei Long? Fei, I’m here.”

“My head hurts”, the reply still a murmur like it was just floating on the breath. For less than a second, eyelashes fluttered, and amethyst eyes could be seen, but then were gone again.

“I’ll get you doctor”, Mikhail spoke, jumping to his feet. He took all towels he could find and placed then over Fei Long to keep him warm in those moments he would be gone, to make anybody get help, yet he never managed to get out of the room. Only two steps had he taken, that he collided with another in the door. Both did they stumble backwards, and Mikhail had almost drawn his gun, when he recognized the other.

That one slipped through next to him, falling to his knees on the side of the bathtub just as he had done before.

“Fei Long?”, Yoh hissed. “Fei Long?”

He did not receive any answer.

“He needs a doctor”, Mikhail pleaded with the Chinese man, who dared a frightened look beneath the layers of cloth comforting the unconscious one.

“What happened?”, he gasped, looking up to the Russian.

Mikhail crouched down next to him. “He fell from the third floor, together with Sudou. They hit the water, but I think it wasn’t deep. He wasn’t breathing for … I don’t know… a minute? Asami revived him. Before that…”, he felt the air in his throat become thin, his voice beginning to stumble and shiver. “… I only heard his voice before, he seemed in pain already then. I… I don’t know. He _needs_ a doctor!”

Yoh shot up to his feet, his hands clenched into fists so tightly it had to hurt. He quivered momentarily, staring at Fei Long, then forced his eyes around.

“I’ll get one. But if that doctor says he can be moved, I’m having him flown out to Hong Kong with his jet right away. So, be ready to leave with him”, and with that he dashed from the room as quickly as he had come.

 _‘Be ready to leave?’_ , Mikhail heard the words echo in his head. He didn’t need to get ready. With Fei Long… for Fei Long he would go anywhere, right away, even plunging head first into hell if need be!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (next coming up is finally Akihito :D)


	27. Akihito

The night dragged on with the sound of the waves washing up on the island’s shore seemingly in slow motion; with the clouds crawling along beneath the stars like they had hardly the strength to move forward; with the seconds stretching to minutes, minutes stretching to hours.

“Go to bed early”, Asami had said, when they had spoken on the telephone in the evening. “Do not stay up late. The sooner you sleep, the faster the night will be over.”

He had indeed gotten to his room _early_ , but he had not found any rest. His heart was beating in his throat, his pulse throbbed just beneath his skin. He had gripped the mobile phone – which he had been handed as a replacement for his own for as long as he had to be hidden away - hard, when he had sat down on the bed. Asami had promised him, that he would call as soon as there was any outcome, but _when_? _That_ , he had not known to say.

Like that he had stayed, staring out of the window, where the sun had lazily sunken beneath the ocean, where the light had drained out of the world as slowly as a glacier melts.

But those words Asami had spoken had been a joke, anyway. Akihito knew, it was just one of those things people would say to him, when they wanted to push him out of the way. When they wanted to set him aside, like some unused toy one hid high up on a shelve.

 _This_ _island_ was that shelve.

For the same reason he had been told that he had been brave at the warehouse in Macau. Asami had said so, and so had the men he had left with Akihito. _He_ had saved Asami, that was the tale they kept repeating to him. Because he had already proven that he was courageous, he didn’t need to demonstrate it again - that seemed to be anybody’s position.

But it had not been about being brave! He had not gotten out of that van and into the warehouse, because he had been bold. He had gone there because fear and uncertainty and despair had started to creep up on him. Waiting like that was torture, hoping for the best was agony.

He wanted to help, he needed to protect. At any rate, he had needed to do _something._ He could not be waiting patiently while the man he loved was in grave danger only steps away. And who could? Who could just sit there and calm their mind and quench the nightmares of their imagination?

 _Back then_ , he had had the chance to end his torment. Taking a gun, he had walked into the warehouse, knowing the danger and, yes, fearing it as well. The alternative however had been so much more frightening.

What would he have done, if Asami had not made it out of there?

 _What_?

And what would he do _now_?

He could not keep the tears for long, though he bit his lower lip until it bled and cut his breath until he felt dizzy. Picking with his fingers at it, he made the small phone light up again and again, but there never was anything there, but a cold light of silence.

He fell asleep somewhen around 3 am, but just for minutes and only because his eyes had become so tired of crying.

Yet still there was nothing. Not a message, not a call. And the night dragged on.

Once again, he tried to remember, what had happened after he had made his decision to walk off into the warehouse, but he could not recall. He had vague pictures in his mind of meeting the Secretary with the glasses and of a long staircase, which now in his memory seemed to lead only into darkness. But there was nothing else there.

What he had been told, was that he had saved Asami by drawing the attention of some enemies upon himself, and that later they had both fallen from some height in the slowly collapsing building. But of all of that he didn’t recall anything.

When he had opened his eyes, it had been on this island. Asami had been there with him but only for a day, then he had left, to attend to his businesses while Akihito was supposed to rest and be save and spent happy days with his friends who had been brought along to keep him company – just like everything was fine. Just like Asami wasn’t in danger once more.

Only that now there was no walking out of his, and fear and uncertainty and despair had long since caught up with him, had ensnared him and filled his mind with dread and sorrow.

While the sky turned slowly blue then gold in the far east, he was lying down on the bed, his eyelids slowly and heavily blinking, but sleep still not granting him any oblivion. There was hardly any sound except for some early birds and insects and the far away waves, and when the phone finally rang, it seemed to make the whole island tremble like an earthquake.

Akihito shot upwards, pushing the accept button so hard, the display might have nearly cracked beneath the pressure of his thumb.

“Yes?!”, he shouted.

“It’s me”, Asami spoke, sounding factually and somewhat harsh. “I am safe. Pack your stuff. You’ll be picked up by a boat at 7.45. You must leave right away. They will take you over to the main island. A car will then take you to Naha airport and you will be given your papers. You need to get onboard a flight at 11.35. It’s the only one leaving today for Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong?”, Akihito blurted out. “What? Are you not coming- are we not going home?”

“I can’t explain now, Akihito”, Asami answered, speaking a little bit softer now. “You need to do as I told you. Say goodbye to your friends, they will be taken home tomorrow. But you need to be in that boat at 7.45 or time will be getting short to get that flight. I’m waiting for you here.”

With that Asami became silent. Akihito could hear him swallow heavily once, but then he just hung up.

“Asami!”, he called nonetheless into the beeping of the broken connection. “Bastard!”, he added whispering a moment later. He thought briefly about calling the man back but knew that he would not answer anyway.

Instead, he started to smash anything he had with him into his bag.

It was already twenty minutes to 11, when he jumped out of the car in front of the International Terminal of Naha airport. One of the men who had picked him up from the pier, snatched his bag and together they ran for the baggage drop counter where Akihito could skip the line because for his ticket there had been bought some quite expensive extra services. Just like that he was minutes later hurried through a row of the security-check-area that was usually reserved for business-class passengers and frequent-travelers, and he found the same convenience at the passport control thereafter.

Notwithstanding, boarding had almost finished when he reached the Gate and he was the last person to step onto the Airbus A320 of a small, rather cheap airline. While most passengers sat rather crammed in the narrow rows of seats, he found his own chair to be one of three in the emergency exit row where there was very much leg room – and no one else. As he approached, he realized that many people sitting around had been eyeing those seats greedily, as usually you had to pay for them a pretty high fee if you wanted to reserve them for yourself but might be allowed to move there once boarding had completed and they had not been taken.

Now however, Akihito sat down there, turning his back onto the envious eyes, and he found himself grinning a bit stupidly remembering that the last few flights he had taken had been in private helicopters and jets, or in the first and business classes of some major airlines.

The flight to Hong Kong took less than three hours, in which Akihito got a meal and drinks and some other amenities for free as they were included in the serviced bought for his ticket, while most of the other passengers had to pay for them. The envious gazes never really stopped until they had all left the plane, and everyone was busy with other thoughts.

His bag was one of the first to tumble down onto the conveyor belt and Akihito snatched it onto his back, then walked straight through the bright green gates of customs into the arrival hall.

There he stopped, letting the bag slip down to the ground again. He looked at a watch above some near information counter. It was about 2pm and he had won one hour on his way from Okinawa to Hong Kong. He had made it in time! At 7.30 he had shouted his goodbyes into the dumbfounded faces of Kou and Takato, had then run to the pier, had nearly jumped onto the boat, had run through the small marina at which they had moored and had almost dived into the waiting car headfirst. On the flight he had fallen asleep finally for maybe an hour and now he felt somewhat rested and still anxious and tense.

He needed to see Asami! Only hearing his voice and listening to his claims, that he was safe: that wasn’t enough. He needed to _see_ him! But he wasn’t here!

Other people were falling into each other arms. There were flowers and balloons and happy tears, and jumping, noisy dogs and running children and some men in suits with signs that carried the names of the people they were supposed to pick up.

But Akihito’s name wasn’t among them. And neither was Asami’s face between the others.

“Takaba Akihito”, he heard his own name suddenly, in a low and quiet voice. Spinning around, he found himself in front of a wall that hadn’t been there before, then raised his head and flung his arms around the waist of Suoh the next second.

“Suoh!”, he beamed upwards. “Where is Asami? Where is the glasses secretary? Is everything alright? Where?”, he babbled on, not letting go but looking around himself so manically he almost rotated his head like an owl.

“I am to take you to him. He is at Baishe”, the quiet giant explained. He unwound himself from the embrace without any need of strength, and picked up Akihito’s luggage which seemed like a little handbag in his pranks.

In a black limousine they drove through the busy early afternoon of Hong Kong and Akihito kept looking out of the window, feeling how his mind was somehow coming to a rest, even though there was still so much to find out, so much uncertainty.

Would they be able to go home now, would they be safe?

Would they be together?

And when would the next danger lunge their way?

But still, with Suoh steering the car over the bridges and tunnels of the vast city, all along the harborside, he realized that some little of the fear and uncertainty and despair had been lost, and they didn’t even manage to creep back up onto him, when the IFC came in sight, where he had been held as a hostage only months ago.

It felt strange coming back here. He wasn’t happy, that this was the place where he would meet Asami again. Rather he would have had him come to that island, where they would have been able to find some spots for themselves with the beauty of the ocean and the beaches all around them. Furthermore, he did not know how he should think of that place now where there would likely be people who remembered him as a little token their master had stolen from another man. And what of Fei Long…?

He shrugged to chase the thought away and leaned forward towards the seat of Suoh.

“Is everybody fine? Is everything alright?”, he asked again. He had put these questions and many others to the man on their way from the arrival hall to the car, but Suoh had just pulled up his shoulders. “Everyone is alive”, had been the answer he had phrased finally. And Akihito was not really sure what that meant. Alive? … He had been hoping for everybody being _‘well’_ or _‘fine’._

“We’re there”, Suoh retorted now, as if that was putting an end to the questions.

They entered an underground car parc and drove through some dark and deep aisles of it until they passed a large, grey steel door. On second thought, Akihito remembered it.

Leaving his bag in the trunk, they entered the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, and while the lift raced upwards, Akihito felt his legs tremble not only from the acceleration.

He felt strange again. Different from the night. It was not fear or despair, but a strange nervousness that tingled underneath his skin and felt like his stomach was doing summersaults. He was happy and jittery, excited and impatient, fickle and uncomfortable – all at the same time.

With a _‘ping’_ the elevator released them, but Suoh stayed inside. “I have to get to the lower floor. Our people are there at a meeting. I was told to take you to the apartment. Wait there.”

“Eeh…?”, was the only thing Akihito got to say before the doors closed again. One man was standing next to the lift and eyed him for a second, then he took a phone and talked into it in Cantonese.

Akihito could feel himself blush. There it was: he asked himself if _that_ man remembered him! Did he know, what Fei Long and him had done in the private rooms on the top floor? Had he _heard_?

Turning to stare at a plain piece of wall, Akihito waited and forced himself to think of nothing but the tapestry there.

He was distracted from it, when the large doors down the hallway, which led into the private apartment, where opened – and when a yell echoed down the corridor: “Akihito!”

It was Tao, who came running and then flung himself around the other.

They hugged for what felt like minutes to Akihito – not that he wanted it to be any less.

“You’ve gotten really tall!”, he said in Japanese, knowing that the child understood him, and looked down onto him. Tao almost reached up to his chin now.

“Yes, I have grown a lot and really quick!”, the boy smiled proudly. There also was a little pinch to his voice. Puberty seemed to have caught up with him.

“Where is Asami?”, Akihito asked and found the other tilt his head and frown a little.

“Mr. Asami is downstairs with Yoh and Master Zhuo. They are talking some stuff that happened yesterday. It sounded like it would take a while, so I am supposed to keep you with me.”

The boy declared. He took the young man by the arm and nearly dragged him towards the large doors. But then he got slower suddenly, with Akihito’s next question.

“And Fei Long?”

For a moment Tao looked to the ground, then raised his head and his eyes seemed to have become a bit glossier.

“Come”, he whispered, and led Akihito by the hand.

Almost nothing had changed in the bedroom of the master of Baishe, since Akihito had last seen it. But a little had indeed.

The ceiling lamps where all switched off, the heavy curtains in front of the large windows drawn shut. It was rather dark in the room except for some few, large paper lanterns that had been lit and illuminated the interior warm and golden.

Fei Long lay on his bed, and Akihito imagined, that only some weeks before he himself hadn’t looked too differently in his hospital bed. There was a mask covering his nose and mouth with a tube running into some machine besides the nightstand. It hummed away silently. One of these little plastic clips had been pinched onto one finger, and white electrodes could be found where the heavy cotton sleep-robe he had been wrapped in exposed part of his chest. A dozen cables spread from there to a really small device that looked more modern than anything Akihito had ever seen in any hospital. It very much appeared to him like it should be used in a science-fiction movie. There were numbers and graphs flickering on it in bright, very fine writing.

Tao sat on the side of the bed cautiously, hardly putting his little weight onto the mattress.

“What happened to him? What’s… what’s with him?”, Akihito asked, daring only to whisper.

“Uh…”, the boy mumbled. “He fell from somewhere into water and nearly drowned. They … explained”, he trailed on, then fell silent.

Suddenly he got up. “I’ll get you someone, who can explain”, he added, then scurried away.

Alone there, Akihito felt the quiet of the room become hardly bearable. The only sound there was, were the little, hardly audible noises of the machines. Fei Long in between them looked like a very beautiful, broken doll.

The thought struck him so hard, Akihito had to fight the tears for a moment. He chased them away with a deep sigh.

There was a bandage around Fei Long’s forehead and many little band aids covered his skin. The left side of his face was swollen and colored purple from the temple down to the cheekbone. On his right cheek there was another bruise, but much smaller, and everywhere else there were scratches and small, dark marks.

Around his neck was some kind of high collar, that protruded from underneath the sleep-robe. It reached from his collarbones over his shoulders onto his neck and from there up to the back of his head where his hair had been caught in a tight knot. Akihito did not know what it was for, but it seemed like it should support his neck, while it would also keep his head from turning or tilting.

His left arm was not in the sleeve but was framed by a brace that held his fingers, spanned upwards around the whole forearm and even wound around his elbow to stop just beneath his biceps. The brace was fixed to his body with a strap to keep it from being moved in any way.

Akihito thought about touching his fingers – those of the right hand, not of the left, for they seemed to be hurt and were mostly hiding in bandage. Maybe he could hold his hand for a little while… He had been told that Fei Long had visited him in the hospital every day…

 _What were they?,_ he found himself wondering. After Asami had brought him home from Hong Kong Akihito had started to write little message and emails to Fei Long via mobile phone. They were all rather trivial and the Chinese had only answered a few of them with little words, mostly sending greetings from Tao. But Akihito had kept going and he had not even really known why he had wanted to.

Didn’t he have all reason in the world to hate Fei Long? The man had kidnapped him, had done unspeakable things to him, but _still_ …

Akihito could not feel angry with him. There had not been any spot in his heart for that, for he knew that Fei Long was not bad – he had just known too much fear and uncertainty and despair.

Meeting him again, _that_ however had been a strange idea. Not that Akihito had not kind of wanted to, but he hadn’t been really keen on turning that idea into reality quickly. And when he had asked the man for help, he had had mixed feelings, knowing that it would mean that Asami and Fei Long would have to face each other again. How that however would turn out, he had had now idea. He did not know what had happened between them once and did not understand their feelings concerning each other – _for_ each other. The only thing he knew with absolute clarity was that neither of both had wanted to kill the other. They had managed to miss shooting the other dead from a few steps away, when they were actually able to hit their mark dead certain at a great distance. They were both perfect shots!

He flinched when he heard steps behind and knew he wasn’t alone anymore, but when he turned, he almost jumped backwards halfway through the room. There was a blonde, tall man there, whom he remembered quite well.

“Is your English any better?”, the Russian asked.

Akihito almost swallowed his tongue when answering but then drew himself together. He had been told that in the warehouse that man had teamed up with Asami.

“Yes”, he answered with wavering confidence in his language skills. He had been trying to get back into his school-English, had been watching some British and American tv series with subtitles and had even practiced a bit with Takato, who had always been quite good with foreign languages. “I’ve learned a bit. How is your Japanese?”, he added, narrowing his eyes to look at the other man defiantly.

The Russian shrugged. “Nonexistent.” He had his hands deep in the pockets of his blue jeans. With a white V-neck shirt, high, heavy leather boots and a necklace and earrings, he looked completely out of place in the Chinese antique décor of the room.

Momentarily he smiled as if his declaration of lacking skills in Japanese had made him proud. His blue eyes even light up for a split second, but then they became darker and the smile faded.

“I’m sorry for what happened on the ship”, he spoke quietly, looking into Akihito’s eyes earnestly. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with Yuri.”

The Japanese suppressed a shudder. Neither did he want to show weakness in front of that man, nor did he even want to think about the other Russian. But he sighed and then nodded to accept the apology, for it seemed rather honest to him.

“If that’s any consolidation-”, the man continued. ‘ _Mikhail’_ , was his name, as Akihito remembered now. “-that guy is dead. I buried a bullet in his brain.”

With another heavy nod Akihito accepted _that_ as well. Maybe these news would keep the guy out of his nightmares. They had been rare recently anyway, but now and then, the man had shown up in them.

Turning back towards the bed again, the Japanese wet his lips. Tao had said he would get someone who could answer his questions, and probably that one was the Russian.

“What… is with him?”, he asked, therefore. He was not sure if he would be able to understand everything… or even much when it came to medical terms, but the man seemed to understand. He spoke slowly and seemingly tried to keep it to more simple words.

“He will be alright, but it will take a while. He’s been through a lot. There was an explosion, and he fell from some height into shallow water. He almost drowned. Your Asami saved him. But he has a very heavy concussion and a… whiplash trauma – that’s when your head is moved too quickly from one side to the other. Happens often in car accidents.” He paused for a second, taking some steps closer to look down onto Fei Long. Akihito watched the blonde Russian, while he explained further, and it seemed to him like the man was in some kind of pain himself.

“There are several broken and bruised rips. His eardrums have ripped, and his left arm is broken in two places as well as three fingers. He needs to get back to hospital in a few days because he needs some surgery on his right knee and both ankles, but that has to wait, for he is very likely to get pneumonia. He already has a little temperature, and he is on very heavy antibiotics to keep it as harmless as possible. The doctors are keeping him sedated, because they say… he would be in a lot of pain…”

At the end his words had trailed away and now Mikhail just looked down onto the other, like he had been lost in his own thoughts.

Akihito left him like that for a long while, staring himself at the sleeping man. Fei Long looked so pretty, even now.

“I was told that there is some important meeting downstairs”, he finally spoke, very softly, very slowly, and turned his head only a little bit towards the Russian. “Why are you not down _there_?”

There was a faint smile tugging on Mikhail’s lips before he looked up and at Akihito. He shrugged. “My businesses are all clear. I have two men down there, just in case. But I…”, he swallowed hard and looked again at Fei Long. “…I prefer to be _here_. With him.”

Akihito’s thoughts all suddenly stumbled through each other after that. He tried to remember what he had heard about the man. The Russian had been doing some business with Asami, but Akihito didn’t know _which_ kind of. Something illegal, most certainly. At any rate he had been an opponent mostly, but somebody that Asami would _sometimes_ deal with, nonetheless. There had also been some Russians fighting with Baishe back then - maybe that had been the same man. And on the boat? Mikhail had several times spoken then name _‘Fei Long’_ and then he had touched some of the hickeys the Chinese had left on Akihito’s skin.

That had all just been months ago and now all three men – Asami, Mikhail and Fei Long - had teamed up. They had met in the warehouse and had joined forces against the group of Chernobog, and had weeks later decided to get rid of what was left of them together.

But was _that_ all? Were business deals and competition and a common enemy everything there was between them?

Akihito realized that he was staring at the other man, when Mikhail tug his mouth into a half-sided smile.

“Are you here… because you are…”, he did not even know if there was a good word to end that sentence with in _Japanese_. Let alone in English! What did he even want to say without sounding stupid or childish or presumptuous or just blatantly ridiculous because he assumed there might be any emotion governing that man apart from a drive for profit and triumph? _Friend? Pal? Buddy?_

He felt himself blush, but Mikhail didn’t. And he did not look angry or amused about the stupidity of that question.

“I love him”, he answered, without any uncertainty or hesitation in his voice, like it was the most natural thing in the world to make such a declaration.

And Akihito froze. There was a knot in his throat that wanted to keep him from breathing and some cold that wrapped around him. For a moment his eyes filled with tears and through them he saw those stairs in the warehouse – one of the few things he remembered – and now they suddenly seemed to lead up to a higher floor and not only into darkness. He could walk up there and maybe his memory would return. Maybe, he could just climb them and when he was upstairs, he would remember how he had saved Asami, how they had tried to get out of the building and how they had fallen down while the warehouse collapsed around them. But then the upper landing turned black again and - though the little hair on his neck and arms kept standing on end - he knew, that the moment was gone. His memory was lost again, and whatever had triggered it, would not work again.

“Are you alright?”, Mikhail asked softly, and Akihito nodded.

He stayed in the apartment for nearly an hour, drinking tea with Tao on a table in the bedroom, speaking softly about Japan and Hong Kong and school and how the boy wanted to visit Disneyland. Akihito promised him, that he would go there with him.

Then the door to the apartment opened, and he didn’t need to see… he knew by the way his steps fell, that it was Asami.

Flying up from the chair he dived out of the room, flinging himself at the man running and was caught in arms that pulled him tight and cradled his head.

He did not let go for a long while, just crying silent tears into the man’s shoulder though they certainly wet his shirt. He drank in Asami’s scent and pressed every inch of his own body against the other’s.

They left in the late afternoon in the back of the car in which Suoh had taken him there from the airport and Asami never let go of his hand. But he looked tired and had promised to explain everything the next day, once he had taken one night’s rest – for he had not had any since two days ago.

He fell asleep on one of the giant, antique sofas in the guesthouse Fei Long had provided for the Japanese and his men weeks before, and Akihito decided to let him. In the meantime, he wandered through the estate, opening empty drawers and staring at traditional paintings and bonsai and vases just to keep himself occupied. He also sent some text messages to friends and family now that he had finally gotten his own phone back.

After nightfall and a dinner which had been provided for him alone, because Asami was still asleep, he stepped out onto the balcony of the bedroom to look up to the night sky. It was much less dark and clear than it had been on the island. He would have loved to lie there on one of the beaches beneath the vast, black heavens with Asami by his side. He was sure the man knew most of the planets and stars shining down on them. But here in Hong Kong he could only see a few of them and their lights were dimmed and faint.

Asami caught him from behind suddenly, wrapping him in strong, warm, gentle arms and pulling him close. Akihito closed his eyes, but could not keep himself from shuddering into the touch for which he had longed for such a long time.

“I missed you”, he whispered, feeling the tears gathering in his eyes again. He wasn’t ashamed of them. Whatever had happened to him – whatever torment or torture, no matter how much fear or uncertainty or despair – he had kept his heart. He had preserved it from all evil. Even though he pulled a gun on another it had only ever been to defend his own life and his love. And these tears were proof of this heart. They had been spilled for Asami many times; they had been spilled for Fei Long whom he had had any right to hate but couldn’t; they had almost spilled for Mikhail, whom he hardly knew and had reason to still take for an enemy but who had just told him about his love as if that was the easiest thing in the world to do. And they spilled now for so many reasons.

Asami turned him around in his arms and took his cheeks between his hands, that cradled him gently. Softly he planted a kiss on Akihito’s forehead.

“I missed you as well”, he answered. “What about your memory?”, he added, his voice a caress on the smaller one’s skin.

“Today I… I thought I might remember. I saw the staircase again, the one I recall. And I wanted to go up in my imagination, but it was gone so quickly again.”

Akihito looked down and his tears started to trail down his cheeks again. Asami however turned his head up and kissed them away.

“Maybe it will come back to you”, he hummed. “The good and the bad. How you saved me, how I told you that you were troublesome, …”

He seemed to have wanted to say more, but instead he took Akihito’s chin between his fingers and lifted it up a bit more, to kiss him, long and tenderly.

Only when he broke the kiss, did Akihito look up again into the other’s golden eyes, who gazed into his own as if their colors wanted to melt into each other.

“I told you another thing. But I am glad, you don’t remember.”

He said, then he started to smile very faintly.

“Because it means, I can once again tell you for the first time.”

He paused. He breathed another little kiss onto the other’s lips.

“I love you, Akihito.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this ff. Thank you all so very much who have read and left comments!!!!
> 
> I will add an epilogue to the series which will serve as a tale of happy endings, because I might have promissed some "healing sex" and fluff to some readers ^__^  
> But that will be posted as a ff on its own as part 4 of the "Beyond the shallow ground"-series.  
> I don't know yet, maybe we even get to see Akihito and Tao in Disneyland =D


End file.
